


The Bridge

by Whisky (whiskyrunner)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Sexual Repression, Slow Burn, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-01-19 06:24:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1459240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskyrunner/pseuds/Whisky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur and Eames meet on a bridge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes place in an alternate [Rough Trade](http://archiveofourown.org/works/384157) verse and doesn't require you to have read RT. Many thanks to [Sibilant](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Sibilant/pseuds/Sibilant) and [Bear](http://archiveofourown.org/users/grizzly_bear_bane/pseuds/grizzly_bear_bane) for reassuring me that it doesn't suck. Comments are love and are also reassuring. <3
> 
> Warnings: Depression, talk of suicide/intended suicide, homophobia.

Amy calls at eleven o'clock to check in. Eames is at once both grateful for and exasperated by his sister's over-protectiveness.

“I haven't taken a bath with the toaster yet, if that's what you're asking,” he says. “Or jumped into the Hudson River.”

“I'm just making sure you haven't set my place on fire.”

“Not on purpose.”

She pauses, not falling in with his sally. “Has Henri called?”

No point in lying. The man calls her place once a week, religiously. “Yeah.”

“You didn't pick up?”

“No.”

“Good.”

He wanted to, though. That's the scary thing. He knew Henri wouldn't call again that night. It's always just one call, no message left, no questions asked. He wanted to pick up the phone and hear Henri's voice. Pretend the last few months never happened. Pretend he's not really staying with his sister in New York, that he'll be home in Quebec soon.

“I miss him,” he says.

Amy doesn't chastise him. He's thankful for that. “I know you do. You were with him for a long time.”

“Mum's been in tears wondering why I won't call my boyfriend.”

“Then tell her what he did. She'll change her tune.”

“I can't,” Eames says. He feels, somehow, embarrassed and ashamed on Henri's behalf. He doesn't want her to know that he might have HIV, right now, that there's been one clean blood test so far but he needs three more before he's in the clear and it's Henri's fault if he's not. Only Amy and Yusuf know about that.

He swallows his shame because, at the end of the day, he still loves Henri—loves him no matter how hurt and pissed and bitter he is, even if he doesn't want to see him ever again.

“I'll be home in a few days,” Amy says. “Don't just drink and mope the whole time I'm gone.”

“I'm not moping,” Eames says, though he is—thoroughly and drunkenly.

“Go to bed.”

She hangs up. Eames tosses the phone down on the couch and sighs.

He needs a smoke. He'd quit years ago, but he's relapsed since coming here. He goes to his bedroom, searches through his things, but the one cigarette pack he finds is empty. He's out.

He bundles up resignedly. It's cold outside.

The cold air at least sobers him up. He walks down the block and buys a pack from the convenience store, lights a smoke once he gets outside, and stands there in the hazy fluorescent light from the store windows, smoking it. When it's half gone he starts walking, but not toward Amy's apartment. He doesn't want to go back there tonight. If he does, he's afraid the crushing weight in his chest will give way and he'll call Henri. At some point, he knows, he has to walk back there and sleep, preferably before he gets too cold; but right now he feels like walking until he physically can't anymore. He wants to be somewhere far away.

Walking west takes him to the river, so he turns north. It's got to be past midnight by the time he reaches the bridge. He crosses it because it's there, and on the other side he finds a bench and sits on it, smokes another two cigarettes in a row and looks at the river, at how bleak and dark it looks.

When he's cold enough, the last of the booze evaporated in his system, he gets up and heads back onto the bridge, toward Manhattan and the apartment.

There's no one else on the walkway at this time of night, though he can hear cars driving past on the other side of the concrete divider. He shoves his hands into his pockets. With his hood pulled up over his face he can't see out of his periphery, so it's just chance that he turns his head to look over the barrier before he reaches the end of the walkway, wanting a last look at the river; it's pure chance that he sees the man standing there, on the other side where people are not supposed to be, gripping the rail tightly behind him, nothing but vast empty space between him and the icy water below.

Eames pulls up short. He casts a swift look up and down the walkway. No one else is there. No one is seeing this. If he keeps walking—

He doesn't. He starts moving toward the barrier, slowly. The other man is shaking, maybe shivering in the cold. He lets go of the rail with one hand, lifts his trembling hand to his face, and flinches when Eames makes a sudden abortive sound, hurrying to close the distance.

“Hey. Hey there, hey,” Eames says quickly, cursing himself for having startled the other man, who sways slightly but then brings his hand back down to the rail. “Hi. Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you.”

“Don't,” the man says sharply, when Eames gets close. Eames freezes. “Stay there.”

Christ, he's young, Eames thinks when he speaks; mid-twenties, maybe. Too young to be on the other side of that barrier, doing this.

“What're you doing?” Eames asks, stupidly—because part of him refuses to believe what's right in front of him. The man, leaning away from the rail, makes a strained, impatient sound and doesn't bother answering, which is probably what that question deserves. He means to jump—it's written in every line of his body.

Eames takes a deep breath, and commits himself to engaging this man.

“Is there—anyone I can call?” he asks. He's never done this before. He doesn't know what the right thing to say is, what magic combination of words will keep this man from stepping off the ledge. He gestures, helplessly; the man's not even looking at him. “There's telephones—”

“No.” The other man's voice is harsh, raw. “There's no one.”

“There's helplines.”

“I don't need help.”

“I think you do,” Eames says, gently, trapped on the safe side of the barrier.

In answer, the other gives a short, abrupt, shaky laugh. Eames licks his lips. He doesn't move closer—he's scared of spooking the man again. But the man still hasn't jumped yet.

“What's your name?”

There's no answer. He can hear cars rushing by on the other side of the concrete, ineffectually, maddeningly close. He can hear the man breathing, harsh, ragged pants, like a wild animal in a trap.

“Arthur,” he says finally.

“Arthur. Okay,” Eames says, with a touch of relief. He moves a little closer to the barrier. Arthur turns his head, just enough to see him from the corner of one wet, glittering eye. “I'm Eames. Will you let me help you, Arthur?”

Arthur looks away and shakes his head. He's wearing a business suit, Eames notes distantly, and that seems so strange.

“You can't help me,” he says. “No one can help me.”

“Do you have family?”

“No.” The rawness comes back into Arthur's voice. “No one.”

“Everyone's got someone,” Eames says, edging closer.

“Don't move,” Arthur says, turning his head again sharply. Eames stops. “Just—please. Walk away.” His voice breaks. “I want to be alone,” he says.

“Well, Arthur,” Eames says, as gently as he's able, “I'm not leaving you.”

Arthur takes a few more panting breaths. Then he shuts his mouth, looks back out over the water. Shaky, he says, “What are you doing here?”

Eames gives a little laugh—realizing that, for the first time since moving here, he's managed to go an entire minute without thinking of Henri once. His problems seem stupid and far-away, suddenly.

“I couldn't sleep,” he says. It takes him a minute to realize that Arthur, still gripping the rail, not moving, is listening—is waiting for him to go on. The words spill from Eames' mouth, more rapidly as he becomes aware that, as long as he's talking, Arthur isn't jumping.

“I was drinking—been doing a lot of that. My ex called me. See, I left him, a little while back, and I changed my mobile number and everything, but now I'm living with my sister, and he knows her number. So he calls once a week, but I don't answer. I know he's doing it because he wants to make sure I'm okay—because he's not a bad person, really, I only left him because he did something stupid—but I can't forgive him. And I know he doesn't deserve my forgiveness, but—I'm afraid of how much I miss him. I was with him for so long, I'm afraid I don't know how to be me without him, anymore. I'm afraid I'll never find anyone like him again and I—I'm afraid I'll end up going back to him because of all this shit. Because I'm—a bit of a coward, really. I couldn't stay home tonight because I knew if I did, I would call him, so ... so I went for a walk.”

He runs out of words and Arthur is still there, with him. He's quiet. He's so quiet and Eames is terrified that it'll just happen, that Arthur will jump without warning, that maybe he wasn't listening to Eames' babble at all. He's just staring down at the water, saying nothing.

“Look,” Eames says, with a little less hesitation, “I know my problems must not compare with yours. You wouldn't be here if things weren't really bad. But I also know that nothing in your life is more permanent than you jumping off that ledge. Everything else—even if it feels right now like it'll last forever—it'll pass, alright? Everything does, eventually. But jumping's ... permanent.”

Arthur still hasn't moved. Eames wonders if it would be okay to move closer now, without startling the other man.

Then Arthur raises a hand to his face again, jerkily. He scrubs it over his mouth, muffling the grating sob that slips out. In a very small voice, he says:

“You're gay?”

Eames falters, taken aback. “Yeah.”

A weighted silence. Eames moves closer.

“So ... now you know all my problems,” he says, cautiously, when Arthur doesn't say anything else. “Why don't you come over here ... and we can talk about yours?”

Arthur's quiet for another minute. Then, burying his head in his hand, he nods slowly. Another gasping sob escapes.

“Okay,” Eames says, his whole body filled with relief. He leans over the barrier and holds out his hand. “Come here. I'll help you.”

Arthur nods again. He lets go of the rail with one hand and Eames grabs it and guides him around carefully, terrified all the while that Arthur's trembling, fatigued body will fail him and he'll fall. As soon as Arthur has turned precariously around to face him, Eames throws caution to the wind and grabs him tightly, hauling him bodily over the barrier. Once he's safe on the other side, Arthur collapses into Eames' chest, gasping and shuddering.

“Okay. I've got you,” Eames says, pulling him away from the barrier, not letting go even once they're far enough away from the rail that he feels safe. Sickening relief washes over him. “It's okay.”

Arthur just slumps into him, utterly wrecked, and Eames finds himself bringing a hand to the nape of Arthur's neck, making mindless, soothing sounds. He doesn't know what to say apart from the most meaningless of reassurances, but Arthur doesn't seem to mind. He seems, somehow, more vulnerable now, in Eames' arms, than he did on the other side of that rail. He's falling apart, and all Eames can do is hold him and hope it's enough to keep him together.

He's not sure how long they've been standing there when another man's voice makes Eames jump. Arthur doesn't even budge. Lifting his head, Eames sees a man in a vest approaching from the other direction.

“Hey. Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Eames says. He doesn't think Arthur's even noticed the other man. “Yeah, we're fine. Thanks.”

The man looks at them warily, and Eames wonders what sort of image they must present. With his hood pulled up he looks like a thug, and he's got a protective death grip on Arthur, who's still wheezing into his chest, gripping fistfuls of Eames' coat. But the man keeps walking, and in a minute he's gone.

After a few minutes, the tight-knuckled grip Arthur has on the front of Eames' coat subsides, as does the rasp in his heavy breathing. Eames rubs his back a bit before speaking.

“Arthur, I think we should get you to a hospital.”

Arthur stiffens, shaking his head. “No. I can't.”

“You need help.”

“If I go to a hospital, my boss will find out about this,” Arthur says bleakly.

“You don't have to say anything about the bridge.”

“I don't want him knowing that I'm—like this.” There's a hitching gasp halfway through this sentence. Eames sighs.

“Alright,” he says, stepping away from Arthur. He leaves an arm wrapped around the man's shoulders, ready to catch him if he should stumble. He looks like he's on the brink of collapse. “Come on.”

Arthur falls into step at his side, quiet as a lamb. Eames notes that although he's wearing a crisp suit jacket, he has no proper coat. It's the middle of February. He comments on this, and Arthur pauses, apparently to remember what he's done with it.

“I gave it to a homeless man,” he says finally.

“That was kind of you,” Eames says. Arthur's steps drag a bit, every few meters.

“I didn't think I'd need it anymore,” he says.

“You're frozen through. Are you sure you don't want to go to—?”

“I'm not going to a hospital,” Arthur grits out, showing a flash of steel. Eames subsides again, and starts shrugging off his own coat. Arthur casts him a mulish, almost resentful look when Eames drapes it around his shoulders, but he pulls it on without a word.

As soon as they leave the walkway, Eames flags a cab coming off the bridge. He's been coatless for a minute and already he's shivering, too. The warmth of the interior of the cab is a blessed relief; he pulls Arthur in behind him, and gives the driver Amy's address.

“You can just drop me off anywhere uptown,” Arthur says tiredly. Eames snorts, gently.

“Not a chance.”

Arthur settles back into the seat with a long exhale, and closes his eyes. He looks exhausted. He slips into a sort of stupour during the five-minute drive, and Eames takes the opportunity to lift his wallet and glean what information he can using what little light he's got. From Arthur's driver's license he gets an address (on the Upper West Side, not too far from Amy's place) and a full name (Arthur Levy). There's no cash or change—perhaps he'd given whatever he had to the same homeless man who'd gotten his coat. Instead Eames finds a business card, from which he learns that Arthur is a financial analyst and investment banker working for the same bank Mal's husband does. Distantly Eames wonders if Dom and Arthur have met, if Dom has bumped into him in some elevator at work, looked at him and said good morning and not sensed any of the blackness inside of Arthur.

They pull up outside the apartment building, and Arthur stirs.

“Where are we?” he asks, suspicious. He fails to notice that Eames is handing the driver his credit card. Eames had only left the apartment with enough for his cigarettes, after all, and he's pretty sure Arthur can afford a short cab ride.

“My place,” he answers. Arthur frowns.

“You said you live with your sister.”

He was listening. Eames is surprised. “She's away this week.”

Arthur looks down at his hands. “You don't have to babysit me.”

“It's not babysitting. I said we'd talk.” The driver gives Eames the credit card, and Eames tucks it back into Arthur's wallet. “Come on.”

Arthur doesn't seem to have the will to argue or resist. He lets Eames lead him into the building, and doesn't say anything in the elevator or the hallway. Once they're in the apartment, Eames guides him to the kitchen and sits him down at the table, helping Arthur pull off the coat.

“Sit and warm up a bit, I'll make tea,” he says, heading over to the kettle. “D'you want anything to eat?”

“No ... no thanks,” Arthur mumbles, folding up Eames' coat carefully and smoothing it out on the table in front of him. “I'm not hungry.”

When the kettle is on and Eames has two mugs and a decaf teabag out, he turns around to face Arthur. Arthur's shoulders are hunched, and he continues to run his palm over the coat, even though it's already lying flat. It's Eames' first time looking at Arthur in the light. He's all sleek lines, perfectly attractive and, Eames suspects, normally put-together, but now his dark hair is disheveled and there are bruises under his brown eyes that hint at exhaustion. He doesn't look up at Eames.

“Why were you on that bridge?” Eames says.

Arthur's mouth twists into what's probably supposed to be a smile, but looks like a grimace. “Isn't it obvious?”

“I mean, there's a reason, isn't there? Did something happen?”

“Nothing specific.”

Eames leans back against the counter and waits. After a long minute, Arthur takes his hand away from the coat and drags his tired gaze up to Eames' face.

In barely more than a whisper, he says, “I'm not happy.”

The kettle boils. Eames turns around and sets to fixing two cups of tea. “How do you take yours?” he asks. Arthur doesn't answer, and when Eames looks around, he sees Arthur's elbows resting on the table and his head in his hands. He puts milk and one sugar into Arthur's tea. Then he carries both mugs over, takes the seat opposite Arthur and slides the mug across the table silently. Another minute or so has elapsed before Arthur drops his hands away from his face, his eyes red-rimmed.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, wrapping his hands around the mug.

“I know you don't want to hear this,” Eames says, “but I really do think you should look into checking yourself into a hospital. It doesn't have to be tonight. But you need help—professional help, I mean.”

“You're talking about a mental hospital?” Arthur says, glancing up at him warily. Eames nods.

“They're nice places. Your boss can't punish you for a medical-related leave of absence. You could go and de-stress for a bit, talk to somebody ...”

“Absolutely not,” Arthur says. He's staring into his tea, but he's sitting a little straighter, and his voice isn't so strained. Eames can almost imagine him at work in his suit, bossing other people around. “That's not an option.”

“Why not?”

“People like me don't go to mental hospitals,” Arthur says. The line of his shoulders softens again. “Besides, I've tried therapy. It didn't work.”

Eames sighs and sips at his cooling tea. If Arthur's made up his mind about therapy and hospitals, there's not much Eames can think of to sway him, particularly not at this time of the morning when his defenses are so low. Arthur sips at his tea, too, and doesn't appear to find it objectionable.

“Why did you leave your boyfriend?” he asks suddenly, when another few minutes have passed.

Eames blinks. It must be more than ten minutes now that he's gone without thinking of Henri, which, before tonight, he wouldn't have thought possible.

“He cheated on me,” he says.

“With a man?”

“Yeah.”

Arthur nods and gazes down at his tea. He doesn't commiserate. After a long pause, he says, “You don't seem gay.”

“What?” Eames' lips are pulled into a smile, involuntarily. He's never heard that before. “What do gay people seem like?”

“I don't know.” Arthur doesn't smile. “Different.”

“We don't all talk with a lisp and dress in leather, you know,” Eames says. Arthur just shrugs, still not smiling or looking at him. Eames huffs gently. “Let me guess. You've never met a gay man before?”

“Yeah, I have,” Arthur says, then pauses. “Not a lot of gay guys in my world.”

“More than you think, I expect,” Eames says, but Arthur just shakes his head again.

“You wouldn't know,” he says.

They lapse into silence again. The tremors have finally left Arthur's body; he's able to raise his mug to his lips without his hand shaking. At length, he says:

“I have a younger brother.”

“I thought you didn't have any family.”

“He's in Brisbane,” says Arthur. Eames drains the last of his tea.

“Ah.”

“If I died, my brother and his wife would get everything. They don't have a lot.”

Eames tries to read his tone, and can't. “I expect he'd rather have a brother.”

Arthur laughs softly. “You think so?”

Eames nods, and gestures to the apartment around them. “My big sister's a pain sometimes, but I'd rather live in a box and still have her in my life than lose her and get all her things.”

To his relief, Arthur seems to be taking this into consideration. His head comes up a little and he blinks, as if noticing his surroundings for the first time. Eames sees his gaze linger on the tea cosy their mum knitted, the postcard on the fridge from Amy's boyfriend. Then he looks at the matching stainless steel appliances and the marble countertops, and seems to approve.

“It's a nice place. Is your sister in finance?”

“No. Acting.”

“Oh,” Arthur says. “I'm in finance.”

“Do you like it?” Eames asks.

“I make a lot of money,” Arthur says, not quite answering the question. His eyes are taking on a glazed look again. “I have everything I wanted. But I'm not happy. I can't sleep, I don't date. I don't know what else to do. I can't keep living like this.”

He slumps, exhausted, as if this admission has taken the last of his remaining energy. Eames slides a hand tentatively across the table. Arthur doesn't seem to notice until Eames touches the back of his hand; then he flinches back.

“Can I give you some advice?” Eames asks. He intends to tell Arthur to give therapy a second try, but Arthur cuts him off.

“Have you ever had sex with a woman?”

Eames withdraws his hand. Then he sits back and rubs at the back of his neck, caught off guard again. “No.”

Arthur lifts his gaze and searches Eames' face. “Then how do you know you're gay?”

It's so out of left field, so far from what Eames was expecting, that he flounders momentarily.

“I don't need to have sex with a goat to know I'm not into bestiality,” he says at last. Arthur's eyebrows furrow, and Eames grimaces. “Sorry, that wasn't the best metaphor. But you get what I mean, don't you?”

“No.” Arthur sighs.

He keeps redirecting, and something about that seems strange. A thought occurs to Eames. He looks at Arthur, who is back to staring down at his hands, small and miserable.

“Why'd you want to kill yourself, Arthur?” Eames asks outright for the first time. “Is it because you're gay?”

Arthur is silent. Silent for long enough that Eames thinks he has the answer to his question. At length Arthur raises a faltering hand, passes it over his face.

“I can't be,” he says quietly.

“What does that mean?” Eames presses.

“I mean, I can't be ... who I am ... and be gay,” Arthur says slowly. “People who are gay don't ... belong in my world.”

“Do you belong in your world, Arthur?” Eames asks gently. “Half an hour ago, you were ready to get out of your world for good.”

For a second Arthur seems almost—offended. Then he shakes his head. Too tired to be irritated.

“There are a lot of reasons I was on that bridge,” he says. “You wouldn't understand half of them.”

“I'm trying to.”

“You can't,” Arthur says. “You're— What do you do?”

Until recently, Eames had been working on getting his Master's degree in experimental psychology. He can't afford to complete it right now. It stings to admit, “I wait tables at a restaurant.”

Arthur nods, as if unsurprised to hear this.

“You can afford to be gay,” he says. “I'm a businessman. I'm—important. We're very different people, so—how could you understand?”

Eames blinks, too taken aback to respond to this slight, but he makes a note of it in the back of his mind—the casualness with which Arthur insults him.

“If I were like you, I would want men,” Arthur goes on. “But I don't. I find the thought of being with a man repulsive. I've tried it.” He really chews the words, as if he can barely force himself to spit them out. His hands, wrapped around the mug, turn white-knuckled. “If I were gay I would feel good about it, and I don't, I feel—disgusted and ashamed. But I keep doing this to myself. Everything builds up and I just have to—so I go out and I hook up—and it's disgusting and I hate it, I hate myself, but I can't stop, there's something about it that I just can't get anywhere else. Every time, I tell myself it's the last time, but it never is. It's the only thing that makes me feel better or gives me any relief; I sleep for an entire night like a normal person and then I wake up hating myself. I _hate_ being like this. What the hell is wrong with me?”

The tea seems to have put a little life back into Arthur. Eames is starting to sense that he's playing with fire. He can hear the hostility in Arthur's voice, and if he answers wrong, he could get burned. He's met men like Arthur before: self-loathing conservatives who blame the devil for their so-called disorder. But Arthur doesn't seem like the religious type. Studying him, Eames thinks he's starting to understand. Arthur just wants to fit in, in his world of money and high-powered business execs—and he doesn't even like it there. Small wonder he's unhappy.

Carefully, Eames asks, “How does sex with women feel?”

“Good,” Arthur says. Then he huffs out a breath, and a little of the hostility leaves him. “Not good enough.”

“And sex with men? It can't be all awful, or you wouldn't keep doing it.”

Wariness comes back into Arthur's eyes. He studies Eames hard, with sudden awareness, as if just coming to his senses, and Eames feels a slight misgiving. Arthur's exhausted and his walls have been cracked in every way, but he's starting to thaw and wake up, and Eames can practically see him shoring up his defenses. He can tell Arthur didn't mean to say so much. He shifts in his seat under Arthur's suspicious glare.

Then Arthur looks away again and shakes his head.

“You know what?” he says. “Never mind what I said. No offense, but I don't even know you. I haven't slept in four days, and I ...”

“I'm just trying to help you,” Eames says. Arthur shakes his head again.

“I can't be helped.” He pushes his cup of tea away: the last of it has gone cold. “Thanks for the tea.”

Eames sighs.

“I know you won't believe me,” he says, “but there's nothing wrong with calling yourself gay.”

Arthur snorts, a soft, bitter little sound.

“Of course you would say that,” he says.

Eames gathers up their cups and carries them to the sink. “D'you want to stay the night? You can have my bed, I'll take the couch.”

“Thank you,” Arthur says, polite now, distancing himself from Eames.

“And we can talk a bit more in the morning, alright? When we're both less tired.”

“Fine.” Arthur stands. “Can I—do you mind if I use your shower?”

Eames gets him a towel, shows him to his bedroom and then to the bathroom. Once Arthur is in the shower, Eames leaves a spare pair of shorts and a t-shirt in the bedroom for him to sleep in. He returns to the kitchen, tears a piece of paper out of a notebook and scrawls his number in pen, then:

_If you need to talk. —Eames_

He slips the paper into Arthur's wallet, and puts Arthur's wallet in his jacket pocket.

He intends to ask more about Arthur's therapy in the morning, what he's already tried and why he's so convinced that something else won't work. But he doesn't get a chance. He can't say he's entirely surprised when he wakes up on the couch the next morning and finds that Arthur is gone without a trace.


	2. Chapter 2

Shortly after she returns home, Amy finds Eames flat on his back on her couch, one arm draped over his face, the dog perched on his chest and regarding Eames with intense concern.

“You see? This is why I didn't want to leave you alone with him,” she says.

Eames lifts his arm and regards her blearily. “I could've taken care of Porkchop.”

“You can't even take care of yourself, Eames.”

“That's a lie,” Eames grumbles, rubbing one of Porkchop's ears between his thumb and forefinger. Amy's little French bulldog wears an expression of perpetual wrinkly-browed concern, which Eames matches, pouting back at him until Porkchop looks away self-consciously. “I dressed myself this morning and everything.”

“You're wearing sweatpants.” Amy folds her arms over her chest. “What have you even been doing all day?”

Eames sighs and drapes his arm over his eyes again. “Mourning.”

“Mourning what?”

“My life,” Eames groans. “What am I doing? I had the perfect man and I left him. I've made a huge mistake.”

“Eames, you had a dirty cheater and you dumped his lying ass. Incidentally, you made me proud of my stupid baby brother for once in your life. Besides,” and Amy's tone changes from exasperation to something slyer, “you can't still be that hung-up on him.”

Eames slants a narrow look at her from under his forearm. “What's that mean?”

“Well, as I hear it, you had a guy up here while I was gone. I have no problem with you hooking up here, by the way, as long as you keep it to your bedroom.”

“I didn't hook up,” Eames grumbles. “And who told you about that?”

“I've got my sources.” She smiles smugly. “My sources tell me he was very cute.”

A neighbour? No, not at that time of night. The doorman, then. That asshole. “It was tea. I invited him up for a cup of tea, which we had, and then he went home.”

“Really? I hear he didn't leave until morning.”

“Just ...” Eames scrubs a hand over his eyes wearily. “Leave it alone, Amy, would you? He was upset ... and he needed someone to talk to. I can relate.”

“Alright.” She holds up her hands placatingly. “But I want it on the record that I encourage you to hook up. I think it'd be good for you.”

Eames just starts playing with Porkchop's ears again and doesn't say anything. The thing is, even if Arthur was gay, sex was the last thing on Eames' mind that night. He _is_ still in mourning. Seven years doesn't go away overnight, even after a mistake on the scale of what Henri did ... and a part of him is still afraid that he will go back. And if he goes back, any sex he's had in the interim will make him a cheater, too.

He knows it's illogical, but in seven years he's only been with one man. Even after everything, it's hard to consider himself part of the open market.

Something Amy said sinks in. Cute. Eames remembers that he'd thought Arthur was attractive, at the time. But when he thinks about it, he can't quite remember Arthur's face. All he sees when he closes his eyes is Henri's smile; Henri's sky-blue eyes.

 

*  
Days blur together for Eames. It's perhaps three or four weeks later that the weather is marginally warmer and he finds himself sitting on a table in a doctor's office, having his blood taken.

“There.” The nurse taking his blood is brisk and competent. She takes the vial full of his blood and hands him a cotton ball to press to his arm. “You'll hear back about the results by next week.”

“Thanks.” Eames inspects his arm once the nurse has left the room. No bleeding. He tosses the cotton ball in the trash and leaves.

This is the second of four blood tests to make sure he's still negative for HIV. The first was after one month; now he's at the three month mark. It seems hard to believe that three months ago he still had a boyfriend and an apartment; that he was one term away from completing his Master's; happy and oblivious to everything Henri was doing behind his back...

If he's got HIV, the antibodies will most likely show up in this test. He's lucky, really, that the first tests Henri took came back with positive results, or who knows how long he might have fooled Eames? Eames wants to give him the benefit of the doubt—Henri had _sworn_ , weeping, that he meant to confess, he always meant to confess—but Eames had seen the test results, and he knew there was more than a month between Henri getting the results and Eames accidentally finding them.

He still misses Henri, but it's easier to resent him when he remembers all of this. When he leaves the clinic, he heads straight to the gym to work out his feelings on the weight machines.

He wastes an entire afternoon working out rigorously. Hours pass in a haze. All his frustration with Henri, with Amy for pushing him to find a new boyfriend, with the state of his tattered life; it all comes pouring out of him until the sweat is running down the back of his neck and his muscles are singing with pain. When at last he stops, he finds that he feels better. A little of the weight on his shoulders has been lifted.

All he has to look forward to is another night of take-out and Amy's favourite medical dramas. It's not the most thrilling of prospects. So when he steps out of a hot shower in the locker room, finally thinks to check his phone, and finds a message from one of the waitresses at his work asking him to take her shift that night because her sister has gone into labour, he sends back an affirmative text straight away. He's tired now and his body is aching; but a few hours of work sounds a lot more appealing than Thai food and TV with the dog.

 

*  
Carpathia isn't a big restaurant, but it gets a good amount of business from locals and tourists both. The decor is muted and the lighting is low; the walls are neutral brown and cream. The tables are dark polished wood with a candle on each, and there's a bar to one side of the long dining room. It's a nice restaurant, without being so high-brow that guys won't come to watch a football game over a few drinks. There are worse jobs Eames could work, and has. He just needs to pay off his student loans and save up for a place of his own, and the patrons are by and large generous with their tips.

He skids into work just in time and gets changed quickly, adjusting his tie and folding the sleeves of his white shirt up to his elbows as he heads onto the floor. “Hey,” the hostess, Nikki, says, catching him on her way back to the front, “just seated a few guys in your section. They look rich, so be charming.”

“I'm always charming,” Eames says with a winsome grin. She laughs. Eames is good at putting it on, whatever mood he's really in.

He can tell that's going to hold him in good stead as he makes his way around his section. He already knows which table Nikki was talking about.

“What a dive,” one of the men is saying loudly. He's sitting with three other men, all of them dressed as if they've just come from the office. “Why'd you bring us here, Oscar?”

The man to his left shrugs. “They do good steaks here.”

The first man scoffs. “You're a vegetarian, asshole.” Oscar shrugs again.

“I read a review online.”

“Jesus, Nash, don't be so judgemental,” the third guy says wearily to the first.

“Great,” Nash says, ignoring him, as Eames approaches. “A restaurant full of hot waitresses and we get a guy.”

At that, the fourth man finally looks up from his menu and catches Eames' eye. Eames holds his gaze a little longer than is appropriate, because he thinks— It can't be Arthur.

But it is. He looks different, especially in this context, difficult to place straight away. This man is immaculately put-together, not a hair out of place even though it's the end of the day; nothing like the man who'd wept into Eames' coat that night on the bridge. Arthur is well-rested and alert now, and after searching Eames' face for a lingering moment, he cuts his gaze away abruptly. Eames knows that he, likewise, has been recognized, and that Arthur doesn't want to be known.

So he swallows what he wants to say, and puts on his most professional smile instead.

“Evening, gentlemen,” he says, pulling out his notepad. “My name is Eames, I'll be your server tonight. Anything I can get you boys to drink?”

He doesn't realize he's looking at Arthur, who's buried himself in the menu, again until Nash snaps his fingers and says, “Hey, princess, eyes over here.”

Eames looks over, choosing not to react to this otherwise, still smiling. “Yes?”

“Give me a Dos Equis.”

Eames hesitates, the tip of his pencil hovering over his notepad. “We've got Bud, Heineken, Red Stripe ...”

“What's that?”

“I think it's Jamaican,” Oscar says. Nash shrugs.

“Give me that.”

Oscar and the other man order beer as well. Eames looks back at Arthur—still unable to believe the difference between this professional and the wrecked young man on the bridge—and finds that Arthur's gaze has made it up to his bare forearms. He drops his gaze to the table again when Eames addresses him.

“And for you?”

Arthur relaxes almost imperceptibly at this, as if only just realizing that Eames is going to keep his secret.

“Just water,” he says, without looking up.

“I'll be right back with your drinks,” Eames says, and leaves.

It's like that the next few times Eames visits their table. Arthur refuses to make eye contact again or even look at him. He talks with his friends (coworkers?), but goes quiet when Eames is near. Eames only knows for sure that it really is him when he's bringing wine to a nearby table and he hears Arthur say, “Maybe I'll just get a salad,” to which Nash replies, “Christ, Arthur, what are you, a girl?”

This is presumably why, when two of them order filet mignon flatiron steaks and Oscar the vegetarian orders the pan-seared yellow fin tuna, Arthur pushes his menu across the table at Eames and says, “Just the chicken breast, please.”

“Certainly.” Eames writes this down.

When he brings the food, twenty minutes later, Arthur is the only one to thank him. But he still doesn't look at Eames.

In between seeing to his other tables, Eames wonders how to get him alone. He'd wondered about Arthur, a few times over the past weeks; wondered if Arthur was taking him up on his offer to talk any time his phone rang with an unknown number. Talking him down off the bridge, Eames supposes he was bound to get a little invested. But he doesn't see any opportunity. Arthur is sipping at his water slowly, and hasn't gotten up once to use the bathroom yet. Soon they'll finish their meals, and Eames will bring their bill, and Arthur will leave.

Nash summons him over a few minutes after he's brought their food. “Is there a problem?” Eames asks. Nash glares.

“Look at this,” he says, shoving his plate around. Eames looks down. Sweet potato fries and a medium rare flatiron steak, just what Nash had ordered.

“I'm sorry?” he hedges.

“Are you deaf, or just stupid?” Nash demands. “I ordered a medium steak. This is fucking raw.”

Eames knows for a fact that Nash had ordered medium rare. He also knows Nash's type, people who'd look for any fault in a meal in order to get comped or get out of tipping. Eames is not so easily flustered, however.

“I'm terribly sorry about that, sir,” he says, lifting the plate away. “I'll have that corrected right away.”

He's barely two steps from the table when he hears Nash say, “Maybe if our server stopped checking Arthur out for two seconds he would focus on his damn job.”

The others laugh. Arthur says nothing. Nash continues: “Go suck his dick in the bathroom, Arthur. Maybe he'll get back to work.”

Eames stops by another table to remove an empty glass and strains to hear Arthur's reply. When it comes, it's acidic.

“Don't be disgusting.”

Eames retreats to the kitchen. It's starting to occur to him that he's not going to get Arthur alone because Arthur is not going to let that happen.

He's wrong, though. He brings Nash a medium steak and notes to himself that Arthur is absent from the table now. He runs into the man himself on his way back to the kitchen, as Arthur is just leaving the bathroom.

“Arthur,” Eames starts; with a glare, Arthur puts a hand on his chest and shoves him back behind a corner, out of his table's sight.

“Don't,” he says flatly.

“What—” Eames stares, bemused, at the bristling man before him. “Can we talk, for two seconds?”

This seems to be exactly what Arthur was dreading. His features sharpen angrily. “Look, I don't know what kind of person you think I am, based on whatever I might have said when I was—very tired, but you and I do not know each other, and I'm not—”

“ _Arthur_ ,” Eames cuts him off firmly. “I just wanted to ask how you're doing. If you feel better.”

“Oh.” Arthur looks no less suspicious. “I'm—” He looks away from Eames, to the side. “Fine. Thank you.”

“Because if you ever need to just talk to someone—”

“I assure you, I don't,” Arthur says, his voice terse and strained. With that, he pushes past Eames and heads back to his table.

Eames sighs, a little disappointed. He'd hoped Arthur was better. He _looks_ better, certainly, like he's gotten some sleep and eaten a few sandwiches since they last saw each other. Arthur's defensiveness makes him doubtful, but there's nothing to be done. As Arthur had said, they're from very different worlds. Eames can't expect to understand him.

He clears their plates away when their meal is done, without looking at Arthur; nobody is interested in coffee or dessert, so Eames brings them the bill, split four ways. He doesn't see them go, once they've paid. He returns to collect their glasses and finds that, on Nash's receipt, next to “Tip”, the man has written “Get a Real Job”. Nothing less than he expected, really. But he gets a surprise when he clears Arthur's things, and finds two folded-up twenties under his glass.

It's been a bad day, but he's a little warmed by this. It's obviously Arthur's attempt at a more heartfelt thank you. He'll take it.

When he finishes his shift that night and starts to leave, Nikki catches him.

“Hey,” she says. “One of your customers left this for you.”

She hands him a business card. Eames knows whose it is before he even looks at it. It's the same as the card he took out of Arthur's wallet that night. When he turns it over, he finds a neat row of numbers written in pen on the back. A phone number.

“He was really cute,” Nikki says, raising her eyebrows.

“Thanks.” Eames can honestly say he had not expected this. He's mystified, but he pockets the card and flashes her a quick smile. “I'll make good use of this, then.”

 

*  
He doesn't call Arthur that night, or the next—he's working late both nights. Any earlier in the day and Arthur will probably be at work and unwilling to take a personal call. The next day is a Saturday, though, and Eames figures that 9PM is probably a safe time to reach him.

He enters the number into his phone, but then hesitates, his thumb hovering over the call button. Arthur had seemed very insistent that he didn't want to talk to Eames. Perhaps that had just been an effect of their surroundings. After all, a business card with a personal number on it is a clear enough signal. He just can't help but wonder what Arthur wants.

Only one way to find out. He calls. After several rings, he hears Arthur's voice.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Arthur,” Eames says. “It's Eames.” Silence. “Ah ... from the restaurant.”

“Right. Eames. Sorry.” Arthur sounds distracted. “How's it going?”

“Good, yeah. How are you?”

“Fine.”

“I was a bit surprised to get your number,” Eames offers after another silence.

“Well.” Arthur clears his throat. “It occurred to me that I never ... thanked you ... properly. For your assistance ... when we met. So I thought, if you would give me your full name, I could write you a personal check ...”

A laugh slips out of Eames. This should be exactly what he'd expected, and somehow, he hadn't. “Seriously?”

“I could offer your sister something, too, for any trouble I might have put her to by staying over.”

He is serious. Eames sighs, the smile sliding off his face. “It was no trouble, Arthur. I don't want any money—although your tip the other night was appreciated. Those are nice friends you've got,” he adds dryly.

Arthur's quiet for another moment. “They're coworkers,” he says. “Not friends.”

Porkchop comes padding into the room. Eames leans down, scoops the dog up and starts rubbing his silky ears, considering. He thinks of Arthur sitting at that table with his coworkers, hunched into himself, and for the first time, Eames can believe he's as isolated as he says he is. After so many days and weeks of feeling sorry for himself, it's almost a little strange to feel pity for Arthur. It's also strangely comforting to know that there's someone as miserable as he is in New York, maybe even more. He grapples with these feelings for a minute—he can hear Arthur quietly typing on a keyboard while they're both silent—and considers that maybe his first assumption was right; that giving Eames his personal number was an unconscious attempt by Arthur to reach out to perhaps the only person he's ever been open with. He hadn't meant to say all the things he did, but Eames knows his secrets now, and it doesn't seem like anyone is lining up for Arthur to confide in. He's less invested now that he's seen for himself that Arthur is alright and coping, but to squander this chance would not do Arthur any favours. Maybe Eames could get something out of it, as well.

“If you just wanted to thank me,” he breaks the silence, “you could have called. I left you my number.”

“I know,” Arthur says, still distracted. “I don't—have it anymore.”

“Right.” Eames figured as much. “I just wondered, when you gave me your number, if you might have changed your mind about talking with me. I mean, I don't need money, but if you're interested, you could buy me dinner sometime.”

The typing stops. He hears Arthur exhale.

“It's not that I don't appreciate your concern.”

“But?” Eames prompts when he doesn't go on.

“But ... look, that night,” Arthur says slowly. “I apologize if I gave you an incorrect idea about ... the type of person I am. I was very tired, and I said some things that weren't necessarily true ...”

Eames gets it, and he wants to laugh again, but something stops him. Maybe it's just how tired Arthur sounds now.

“I'm not asking you on a date. You wanted to repay me, dinner would be a good way.”

By the uncomfortable silence that follows, he can tell Arthur either doesn't believe him or has reservations about being seen having dinner with another man. Probably the latter—he's just the type.

“We could go to your place and have dinner there,” Eames offers.

“No ... no. A restaurant would be fine.” He's cool and lofty again. Eames waits for him to go on, but he doesn't.

“Do you know Catalina's? On 89th?”

“Yes.”

“We could go there. Monday night okay?”

“No,” Arthur says. “Not Monday. I have a ... work thing. It would have to be tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow I'm working.” Eames thinks swiftly. “We could do lunch. Twelve o'clock alright?”

“Fine,” Arthur says, after another long pause.

“I'll meet you outside,” Eames says. He's not going to wait inside to be stood up if Arthur backs out. 

“Okay,” Arthur says.

“See you then,” Eames says, and without giving Arthur any room to change his mind, he hangs up.

 

*  
Arthur does not stand him up. In fact, he's already waiting outside the restaurant when Eames gets there. He makes Eames feel a little underdressed in his battered leather jacket. It's turned cold again today and Arthur's wearing a grey double-breasted wool pea coat, a plaid grey scarf looped around his neck and bunched up where he's tucked it into the coat, and black leather gloves. With his pressed dark grey slacks to complete the look, he's very monochrome in appearance, but sleek and businesslike too. Eames halts in front of him, hands tucked into his pockets (he tells himself that it's not to hide his fingerless gloves from Arthur; only because his fingers are cold).

“You look like a serial killer,” he says.

Arthur frowns, looking down at his black gloves, then flushes slightly.

Eames softens. He'd had an argument with Amy before leaving the apartment and it didn't leave him in the most gracious of moods. Surprised to see him out of his bedroom before noon, she'd asked what he was doing and surmised from his answer that he was going on a date. His protestations hadn't satisfied her.

“It's been three months, Eames,” she'd said flatly. “If you're not dating yet, you should be.”

“Three months? That's how long it takes to get over a seven-year relationship, is it?”

“I'm not saying forget about him,” she'd said. “But at least if you're dating you're not pining for him in your room for the rest of your life. You dumped a loser. Stop acting like you're the one who's been dumped!”

Eames had stormed out of the apartment (slamming the door on his way) and walked around the neighbourhood until the urge to hit something had passed. He hates what Amy had said because, deep down, he knows she's right. He made the choice to leave Henri. He shouldn't still be sick with misery over this break-up when he's the one who did the dumping. But he wants to mourn, to nurse his hurts a little longer. She acts like he should be celebrating, and he feels the furthest thing from it. He'd even called up Yusuf, seeking a sympathetic ear, and been maddened when his best friend agreed with Amy.

“You're not going to feel better until you start putting yourself out there again,” was Yusuf's advice. “They're not all like Henri.”

“ _Et tu_ , Yusuf?”

“Get back on that horse,” Yusuf said. “Hire a hooker, if you must. It's the only way you're going to get over him, Eames.”

Eames had to swallow down the words that rose like bile in his throat: _I don't want to get over him._

His bad mood must be palpable: Arthur is watching him uncertainly, looking half ready to leave. Eames pushes everything else to the back of his mind, tamping down the clamor of his own thoughts.

“I'm glad you got a new coat, anyway,” he says. He resists the urge to ask how much it cost. It looks nice, warmer than what he's wearing. Arthur relaxes a little and shrugs.

“You want to go in?”

“Yeah.” Eames pulls the door open and lets Arthur in first. Arthur relaxes further inside: the place is busy but not packed, and nobody spares a glance for the two of them walking in together. Unlike Carpathia's dark polished wood and dim lighting, this place is all green and white and sparkling crystal light fixtures, giving it a springtime feel that doesn't match the chilly weather outside. A hostess shows them to a secluded table and they shed their coats, and Arthur his scarf, before sitting down.

“Have you been here before?” Arthur asks, before Eames has to come up with something to say first. He nods.

“They do really great burgers here. I've been craving one lately.”

“You can order anything you want,” Arthur says. “It's on me.”

“Right,” Eames says, but he already knows he'll just get a burger. It isn't like there's anything wildly expensive on the menu anyway. Arthur opens his up and frowns at it, like he's just realizing this. Eames gives him a minute to read before asking, “How are you?”

Arthur sighs. “Okay,” he says, without looking up. “Sleeping better, and that's the important thing.”

“Is it?”

“Everything else gets easier when I can sleep.” Arthur pauses after this, mouth pursed, as if he's not sure how much he wants to reveal to Eames this time around. Then, before Eames can ask him another question, he looks up. “How about you? You left your boyfriend, right?”

Once again, Eames finds himself surprised at how perceptive Arthur had been the night they'd met. “Yeah. Still not sleeping so well, but I can't complain.”

Arthur looks interested, but doesn't get a chance to say anything before a waitress appears at their side.

“Hey there! I'm your server, my name is Megan. What can I get you to drink?”

“Water is fine, thank you,” Eames says.

Arthur looks up at her. “I'll have an iced tea with a slice of lemon, seedless. Easy on the ice.”

Eames raises an eyebrow. He's never heard anyone order a drink like that before. Certainly he's had patrons get especially specific over their meal orders, but never anything as simple as an iced tea. Megan the server, however, doesn't bat an eye.

“Sure thing. I'll be right back with that.”

“Thanks.” Arthur goes back to the menu. Eames rubs at his lower lip thoughtfully, watching him.

They're both quiet for a minute or two. Arthur breaks the silence.

“Sorry for showing up at your work. I wasn't stalking you.”

Eames waves a hand. “Didn't think you were.”

“I meant to give you a call at some point, but I lost your number ...” He's interrupted when the waitress arrives with his iced tea. “Thank you.”

“Sure thing.” She beams. “Are you ready to order?”

“I'll have the California cheeseburger, please,” Eames says, handing her his menu. She turns to Arthur, who pauses before giving her his.

“The vegetarian wrap, please.”

She bustles off, and Eames casts Arthur a little smile. “Don't like burgers?”

Arthur's fiddling with his napkin, unfolding it primly, removing his utensils and setting them aside. “I'm watching my weight,” he says at last, coolly.

“Oh.” Eames lapses back into silence. Talking to Arthur is harder than he anticipated. He can practically see the walls Arthur's put up around himself. He let Eames in once by accident; he doesn't seem keen to do it again.

Watching his weight? Eames can hardly think of anyone less in need of a diet. He doesn't know what to say; so he just watches while Arthur refolds his napkin, then takes the lemon wedge off the rim of his glass and squeezes it into his drink. He puts the wedge on the bread plate at his elbow once it's been wrung of its juice. Then, while Eames watches, he picks up his fork and uses it with his straw to start fishing out an ice cube.

While he does this, he says to Eames, “Are you from England?”

“Yes,” Eames answers belatedly. Arthur somehow manages to extract an ice cube with the dexterity of one using chopsticks, and places it on the bread plate with the discarded lemon wedge before going back to his drink. Eames is fascinated. He's always been appreciative of people's idiosyncracies, the minute tics and oddities that make them unique. Like how Henri always ate chicken wings with a knife and fork. And Eames teased him...

“London, actually. And you? Did you grow up in New York?”

Arthur shakes his head. “Southern California,” he says.

He removes a second ice cube and puts it with the first. There had only been five to begin with, but he seems much more satisfied now that there are three. He stirs the drink with his straw and takes a sip, then seems to realize for the first time how raptly Eames is watching him.

“They always put too much ice in,” he explains, ducking his head. “Even when I ask them not to.”

“Why not ask for just three ice cubes?” Eames asks.

Arthur sighs, stirring at his drink a little more. “Then I would just be nitpicky.”

It takes Eames a beat to realize that Arthur has actually made a joke. He laughs, surprised, and this coaxes a smile out of Arthur—small, reserved, but enough to crease the corners of his eyes.

“I'm aware of how high-maintenance I am,” he says.

Eames shakes his head. “It's good to know what you like,” he says, and he's momentarily surprised by the way Arthur's smile fades, and how he goes back to stirring his drink. It was, Eames reflects a second later, perhaps not the most tactful thing to say to somebody suffering a sexuality crisis.

Arthur's become reserved again. He lets the silence go on for another minute before slanting a wary look at Eames. “Can I ask you some questions?” he says, and hesitates. “About ... being gay.”

If it were someone else—because Eames has heard this before, more than once—he would answer with an airy, _Of course. That's why gays exist, to answer straight people's questions_. Questions about being gay usually run from awkward at best and invasive and rude at worst. But Arthur's not straight, not completely, whatever else he says, and he's not just prying—this may be relevant to his own life, after all.

So Eames says, “Yes, of course.”

Arthur looks down, becoming very fascinated with his fork. “How long have you ... been gay?”

“Always, I suppose.”

A little furrow appears between Arthur's eyebrows. “I mean, when did you know?”

Eames thinks. “I was twelve, perhaps? Thirteen? Around then, anyway.”

“How did you know?”

“Wasn't hard,” Eames says. “Realized I was still looking at pictures of action heroes while my friends were looking at bikini models. Figured out I wasn't interested in girls, not that way.”

Arthur is nodding slowly. “When did you tell your parents?”

“I think when I got my first boyfriend. I was fifteen.”

Now Arthur looks up at him again. “What did they say?”

Eames shrugs. “That they loved me and it wouldn't change anything. I think my mum had had her suspicions ... she's pretty sharp. Anyway, they were right, it didn't change much.”

Arthur is silent. Eames studies him before adding, “I always wondered if my dad wasn't a bit ... disappointed. But if he was, he never said anything about it before he died.”

Arthur's gaze flickers back up. “My father died when I was eighteen.”

“I'm sorry,” Eames says, even though that's probably a decade gone, and he had already suspected this. “I was twenty-five. Got to fly back home to see him before he passed, so it ... it could've been worse.”

“And he didn't care that you're gay,” Arthur says.

“Like I said,” Eames says, “if he cared, he never said anything.”

Arthur just nods again, apparently losing interest. He can't relate to this. It's unsurprising, but still sad. Eames sits forward, folding his hands on the table in front of him.

“My turn,” he says. “Can I ask you some questions?”

Arthur's gaze is hard when it snaps back up to Eames' face, and Eames can tell he's been expecting this—waiting all along for Eames to take advantage of what he knows to pry into Arthur's life, and Arthur's ready to shut the conversation down altogether. But Eames already knows he hasn't earned enough of Arthur's trust to ask those questions yet. If he wants to learn, he'll have to come at Arthur from the side. So instead, he asks, “What was California like?”, and some of the tension evaporates from the table at once.

Arthur is not very forthcoming, but Eames has ways of coaxing out information. Before their food has arrived, Eames has learned that Arthur grew up just outside of LA, that he got his MBA at Harvard, secured his job in New York as soon as he graduated, and that he doesn't like it here as much as California (too cold and wet), but has no intention of moving. He's quiet, contemplative for a minute after he divulges this.

“I've been like this since before college,” he says finally.

“Like what?”

“Unhappy.” Arthur's voice is quieter.

“You said you had tried therapy,” Eames prompts gently.

“Yeah. That was in college. It was ...” Arthur pauses, considering. “He helped me. But now I think he was just putting a band-aid over this ... infection I have inside of me. This ... unhappiness. I know I'm supposed to be the only one who can beat it. But ...”

He keeps pausing, waiting for Eames to say something, maybe, or perhaps for Eames to laugh at him. Finally, he goes on: “If I'm putting all my energy into just doing my job and living day-to-day, where am I supposed to get the energy to fix myself? That's why I—went there, you know, because I was so tired. I know you want me to say that you saved my life, that you gave me a new will to live or something, but all you really did was ruin my suicide. What happens the next time I go four days without sleep?”

His tone now is hard, almost challenging, as if he expects Eames to come up with a defense for this. Eames asks: “Did you sleep?”

Arthur blinks, then narrows his eyes. “What?”

“That night, at my place,” Eames says. “Were you able to sleep?”

Arthur frowns. “Yeah, actually. I slept for about four hours.”

“Is it possible you slept because you finally talked to someone about the problems you're having?”

Arthur's expression becomes shuttered. “I don't want to talk about this anymore.”

“I don't mind listening, Arthur,” Eames says patiently—which is the truth, as much because he's curious as anything else. “And I don't mind trying to help you if I can.”

“Look, you seem like a nice person,” Arthur says abruptly. “I'm ... not. You don't have to pretend to care, and it's probably better if you don't.”

“I'm not pretending,” says Eames.

Arthur looks up at him—searching, Eames suspects, for conviction. Eames holds his gaze steadily, until at last Arthur drops his eyes.

“I—”

“Here we go!” Their server is back. She slides a plate in front of Arthur, who startles and clamps his mouth shut, then slips Eames' burger in front of him. She beams. “Everything okay?”

“Yes, we're fine, thank you,” Eames answers. When she's gone, he looks back at Arthur. “What?”

Arthur shakes his head and picks up his utensils. “Never mind.”

Eames lets it go in favour of biting into his burger. It's as good as he remembers. Arthur picks at his wrap with a knife and fork. He doesn't seem to be hungry, or perhaps he doesn't like the taste. Eames wouldn't blame him: the greens hanging out of the wrap look like weeds. He doesn't comment, though; he eats his burger and waits to see if Arthur will break the silence. Eventually, he does.

“So does your ex-boyfriend still try to call you?”

“Nah,” Eames says, swallowing. “I think he's given up. Not sure how I feel about it.”

Arthur examines the piece of wrap on his fork before taking a careful bite. “What does he do, this guy?”

“He's a nurse,” says Eames. Arthur nods, unsurprised, and Eames recalls what he'd said about Eames not being important—how much he seems to base worth on a person's occupation—and adds with a touch of defensiveness, “He wants to be a doctor. He's taking pre-med classes at night.”

Arthur just nods again, uninterested. “Why'd he cheat on you?”

Eames takes a deep breath. “He thought he was bored. He made a mistake. That's what he said.” Arthur pokes some more at his wrap—it looks less appetizing than ever—and makes no comment. Something settles over Eames, impulsive and desperate, and he hears himself say to Arthur what he's only told Amy and Yusuf up till now: “He got HIV. I might have it. I'll find out this week.”

“He sounds like a winner,” Arthur says. Eames can't tell if he's uncomfortable with this revelation or not.

“He's not a bad person,” he says, helplessly coming to Henri's defense again. “He just—he made a mistake. He was stupid, and he made a bad mistake. But he's not a bad guy.”

“Then why'd you leave him?”

“Because I can't forgive him,” Eames says tiredly. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn't. I wouldn't have been happy, staying there. So I know I made the right choice. It's just—fuck, I miss him so much,” he sighs. Arthur watches him, dark eyes unreadable. “I still love him. Maybe I always will. He made me _happy_... Anyway, I know it's stupid. My sister keeps telling me I need to get out and hook up, you know, get over him, but I can't. I know it's stupid—I just can't.”

He hadn't meant to say all of that. Looking at Arthur now, he suspects he's boring the man silly with all this talk of his ex-boyfriend and love. He sighs again, ready to change the subject.

Then Arthur says, “I don't think it's stupid.”

Eames blinks. He hasn't been able to read Arthur at all since the conversation turned to Henri. He's not expecting this.

“You don't?”

Arthur shrugs, cuts a tiny piece off his wrap and eats it. “You can't always help how you feel,” he says in a low voice. “I tell myself every day that I have no right to be like this. I have a good-paying job and a nice apartment. Things could be a lot worse, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm not happy. So if you tell yourself you shouldn't still love this guy, and you do anyway—I don't know. It makes sense to me.”

He looks away, self-conscious, but Eames goes on staring at him. It's the first time he's heard this since leaving Henri. He feels a rush of validation. He doesn't have to justify himself to Arthur. Arthur understands.

“Thank you,” he says.

“For what?” says Arthur, stand-offish again.

Their server comes back to ask if everything is okay, and they drop the topic after that and don't bring it up again. At the end of the meal, Arthur pays as promised. He leaves a twenty percent tip—Eames checks. Standing outside the restaurant, Arthur says, carefully, without looking Eames in the face, “If I ever did want to talk. Would you mind?”

“Not at all,” says Eames.

Arthur nods, squinting against the cold wind, and puts his hands in his pockets. “I have to get some work done today,” he says.

“Alright. Thanks for lunch.”

“I hope you don't have HIV,” Arthur says.

“Thanks. I hope you feel better,” Eames replies.

Arthur just smiles, as if at a joke. He turns and leaves without saying anything else. Eames thumbs the phone in his pocket, where Arthur's number now lives, before he starts walking home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God I'm really sorry this took so long. The next chapter is Arthur's POV and hopefully won't take as long to complete! Again, join me on [Tumblr](http://whiskyrunner.tumblr.com/) for fic updates and adorable rat pics.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for lots of suicidal thinking in this chapter. There's a couple flashback scenes but hopefully the timeline is clear!

Arthur's Monday starts the exact same way most of his weekdays do. He wakes up at 4AM and can't get back to sleep. Since he doesn't have to be at the office until 10 today, he sits on the couch and watches an early-morning talk show in a torpor. Today the show features adoptable dogs from one of New York's animal shelters. He has a bowl of Shredded Wheat for breakfast, like he does most mornings. It's a good week and that means watching what he eats, so it doesn't screw him up too bad when he has a bad week and lives on take-out and fast food. At 8 o'clock he gets in the shower and cries because his life is so far from what he wanted it to be. Then he goes through his usual grooming routine, gets dressed, and leaves with time to spare.

It's a repeat of the last seven days, except that he didn't have to leave the apartment on Sunday.

Mal calls him while he's walking to work. He answers the second time and pretends he didn't hear his phone. She wants to know how his blind date on Saturday went.

“Fine,” he says. “She was nice.”

“So you liked her?”

“Yes,” he says. Actually, he'd liked her a lot more than most of the women Mal sets him up with.

He braces himself for Mal to say that his date hadn't liked him, so that's that. Instead she says, exasperated, “Then why didn't you kiss her goodnight, silly boy?”

He hates how Mal pumps his dates for information, presumably so she can rate Arthur's performance. He hunches his shoulders.

“It was a first date,” he says stiffly. “I didn't know if it would be ... prudent.”

“Prudent,” Mal teases. “Well, she wanted you to kiss her.”

“She liked me?” Somehow he's surprised.

“Of course! So you call her today or tomorrow and you make another date, and next time you will kiss her, yes?”

“Okay,” Arthur says, still surprised. He'd been so tired—he doesn't even remember what they had talked about, now.

“And if you go to Starbucks today you get Dom a hibiscus tea. He drinks too much caffeine. Okay?”

“Okay.”

He does stop at the Starbucks next to his office building, but he gets Dom's usual Americano and his own espresso with extra shots of caffeine. He knows what Dom would think of hibiscus tea, and what Mal doesn't know won't hurt her. He gets to his office building at 9:30, half an hour early, and heads up in the elevator.

The floor he works on is a largely open space, with a few big desks, each surrounded by chairs, where the analysts work at one end. To either side are closed individual and shared offices with glass windows and doors. Arthur, as an associate, has his own office—small, with no windows, but serviceable. He leaves his coat and coffee there before heading across the floor to Dom's office, which is considerably larger, with a view of the street below.

“You're the best,” Dom sighs when Arthur delivers his drink. “You know Mal's been making me drink tea?”

“She said, yeah.”

Dom leans back in his chair, takes a gulp of his drink and closes his eyes. “What would I do without you?”

“You'd drink less coffee ... probably live longer.”

“Not less,” Dom argues. “Just shittier.”

Arthur smiles. Dom is probably his best friend. They'd met when Arthur interned at the firm the summer before completing his MBA. Later, he'd saved Arthur from the bleak, soul-sucking world of equity research and introduced him to the bleak, soul-sucking world of investment banking, where the hours are brutal but the monetary compensation is great. Dom swears the hours will get a lot better as soon as Arthur makes VP—whenever that happens.

Dom's a good person. So is his wife Mal, who's determined to marry Arthur off before he's thirty. They're probably the only people who would miss Arthur if he was gone. It would take everyone else here at least a week to notice. In fairness, though, Arthur spends a lot of time holed up in his office. He's not entirely sure he'd notice right away if someone else disappeared.

“Mal wants you over for dinner one night this week,” Dom says, finally pulling his attention away from his coffee. “I told her your schedule's pretty tight but you'd see what you can do.”

“Sure,” Arthur says.

“And I'd lay low this morning if I were you,” Dom adds, when Arthur reaches for the door. “Fischer's probably going to come out of his office soon and he'll be in a nasty mood. He's been yelling at his kid in there for the past hour.”

“Really?” It's not exactly a secret that Maurice Fischer, the Managing Director, isn't especially fond of his son Robert, but he's usually careful to keep his disdain out of the workplace. In fact, it's rare to even see the two of them in the office at the same time. Arthur leans past the door and glances at the office at the far end of the floor. The glass windows on either side of the door are shuttered, all the blinds closed. “Why?”

He looks back at Dom, who has a strained, slightly uncomfortable expression on his face.

“Apparently someone caught Robert ... ah, getting friendly with one of the cleaning staff in his office after hours.”

Arthur raises an eyebrow. “Maurice doesn't want his son marrying below his station?” he says, only half joking.

“I don't think marriage will be an issue,” Dom says with a forced laugh. “The cleaner's an ex-con named Esteban.”

Something twists uncomfortably in Arthur's stomach. He's suddenly hyper-conscious of his pulse in his temples, and he forces what he hopes is the appropriate expression.

“Well,” he manages, but Dom isn't paying attention. He's propped his chin on his hand and he's gazing at the wall opposite.

“You know me, Arthur. I'm no bigot,” he says. “I just don't think that kind of thing is okay in the workplace, regardless of who or what your partner is. It's not appropriate, you know?”

“Yeah,” Arthur agrees. He's seen Dom kiss Mal when she visits him at work. “No, it's really not.”

“Fischer, though,” Dom says, after another pause. “Not a huge surprise, I guess.”

“You think?”

“He's always been kind of ... weird,” Dom says.

“I know what you mean.” Arthur's not lying. Robert Fischer is weird; it's common knowledge. He doesn't hang out with other associates, even when someone orders food for everyone working late. He's quiet, mild-mannered, always under some degree of stress. He started as an associate a few months after Arthur did; but he'll probably make VP first. Perks of being the boss' son.

Arthur always figured that's why people avoid the guy, because he's Maurice Fischer's son. But maybe that's not it. People can tell when a person's ... different.

“What's gonna happen to him?”

“Who knows,” Dom says grimly. “I don't think Maurice will want—”

A door crashes open noisily in the office with a clatter of blinds. Arthur, standing next to the door, only has to take a couple steps to glance outside. Robert Fischer is storming out of his father's office. Maurice appears in the doorway a second later, red-faced.

“I'm not finished with you!” he says. “If you don't get back in here—”

“You'll what?” Robert says loudly, rounding on him. “You'll fire me?”

“Don't raise your voice at me, Robert!”

“I'm sorry, Dad, am I making a _scene?_ ” Robert shouts.

“Get out of this building!” Maurice yells, flushed, pointing with a shaking hand at the elevator. “You're suspended! Get out of my sight!”

Robert, in contrast to his father, is very pale. He's quiet for a moment. Then he says, “Fine,” and wheels around to make his way to the elevators. Almost everyone is watching discreetly, not just Arthur, and he sees Robert's eyes quickly sweep the room, perhaps looking for an ally. But he finds none. Arthur jerks back when Robert meets his gaze for a second, almost bumping into Dom, who's standing behind him now. But Robert just sneers slightly; his eyes slide away, and he stalks to the elevators. Somebody is getting out just as he reaches them; Robert shoulders past the startled man, and the elevator doors glide shut behind him.

A sickly silence has fallen over the room. Maurice, breathing hard, glares around the room. His eyes, too, rest on Arthur, but for longer than a moment.

“If I see any of this appear on _the Youtube_ ,” he says in an icy, carrying voice, “every man in this room will be fired.”

He goes back into his office and slams the door. Arthur's frozen, thinking of Maurice's pale eyes fixed on him, and it takes him a few seconds to realize Dom is mutely squeezing his arm, trying to pull him back in, out of sight. Arthur brushes him off, shaken.

“I should get to my office,” he says.

Dom looks like he's about to say something, but changes his mind. “Thanks for the coffee,” he says.

Arthur leaves.

 

 

***

Several days before he decided to kill himself, Arthur found himself kneeling outside his closet, going through a heavy box of files.

“Come on, come on,” he mumbled; but it was a huge stack of papers, and he was looking for one small business card.

He found it at last, and pulling out his phone, he punched in the digits that had been written in pen on the back of the card. Then he paced, anxious, wondering if this number was even still in use, if he was making a mistake... His heart leapt when somebody answered the phone.

“Hi—is this Dr. Baumann?” he asked quickly.

“It is,” the man replied. “Can I ask who's calling?”

“Sorry—it's Arthur. Arthur Levy, I used to have sessions with you back when I lived in ...”

“Arthur, of course.” The man's voice was warm. “You were in business school. You moved to New York, didn't you? How did that work out?”

“It's fine,” Arthur said, clipped. “I'm still there. I'm sorry to call, but before I left you gave me your number, you said if I ever needed to talk ...”

“I remember,” Dr. Baumann said. “How can I help you, Arthur?”

“Well—” Arthur took a deep breath. “I'm coming up for something big at work, and I need to be focused, and I'm ... not. I've been having trouble, lately, with ... with thoughts and—certain impulses, and I need it to stop. I need help.”

There was a silence. It went on long enough that Arthur added, desperate, “Please.”

“Well, Arthur,” Baumann said gently, “this is awkward. You see ... I don't do reparative therapy anymore.”

A steel fist clenched itself in Arthur's chest. “You don't,” he said.

“No. I'm ... I'm afraid that it really seems to do more harm than good, in most cases. I left my wife and I'm living as an openly gay man now. I ... I must say I recommend it.”

This couldn't be right. He was Arthur's proof, him and his other older clients, that it could get better, that he could square away his unwanted thoughts, find a nice woman and get married and live a happy, normal life. That couldn't be a fantasy. It couldn't, because it was going to _happen_ for him. He was going to get the VP position that had just opened up and he was going to work normal hours and make money he could support a family with; he was finally going to have time to date and he was going to settle down and _he was going to feel better_.

And he was not going to frequent any more gay bars. But he was so tired and anxious, and there was an itch deep inside him that he couldn't scratch, and he was terrified that even making VP wouldn't make it go away. This could ruin his life.

“But you helped me,” he said bleakly.

“I don't think you need that kind of help.”

“I do. I've—” He didn't even know, he didn't know the lows to which Arthur had sunk. Arthur had to choke the words out, just to impress upon him the severity of his situation, his voice going low and raw: “I've had ... _sex_ with men.”

“I see,” Baumann said, still so gentle. “If you like, I can get in touch with one of my colleagues in New York, see if I can set you up with an appointment. This week, if you like. Someone who can help talk you through your feelings, maybe help you understand that what you're going through is entirely normal ...”

“It is _not normal_ ,” Arthur gritted out. “And it's not healthy and I need help, not—not _encouragement._ You don't know, you don't know how important it is that I get better—”

“I do know, Arthur. And I agree that you need help, but not the kind you're looking for.”

Arthur felt abandoned. Dr. Baumann had been his rock in school. Now he expected Arthur to just give up, without even fighting for himself? This wasn't what Arthur had expected at all.

“Okay,” Arthur said finally, head reeling. “Fine.”

“Do you want me to find a new therapist for you?”

“No. I'll find one.”

“Good,” Baumann said. His voice lowered. “And, Arthur, if ever there's anything else you want to talk about ... _anything_... give me a call. At any time. Okay?”

“Right,” Arthur said numbly. He got the sick feeling that he was being hit on. “Thanks.”

He ended the call.

This was not the end of the world, he told himself. He could handle this himself. Certainly it would be easier once he was in his new position, and would be making more money, and getting more sleep—in fact, it was probably much easier than he was making it out to be. And if not, he had handled this by himself before. All his teenaged years had been spent forcing away those feelings. He could do this. It was going to be okay.

Dom met with him in his office one morning, later that week. Arthur had spent most of the night lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, and he'd already taken two caffeine pills and was working on an espresso. It had been almost four days since he last slept. “Hey,” he said, trying to look bright and alert.

“Hey,” Dom said, smiling. He sat on the edge of Arthur's desk, and Arthur knew at once that something was wrong. “How's it going?”

“Fine.”

“Good.” Dom nodded, and looked at him squarely. “I wanted to tell you, before you heard it from someone else—we're giving the VP position to Lee.”

Arthur blinked, schooled his expression into something as impassive as possible. “Okay.”

“It's not a reflection on you, or your work,” Dom said firmly. “Lee's been here a little longer, that's all.”

“Right,” Arthur said. He wished Dom would leave. “That's fine.”

Dom reached over and gripped his shoulder. “I know you wanted this. In another couple of years, it'll happen. Just keep doing good work. Maybe work a little more closely with some of your colleagues, meet with clients a little more regularly. Stuff like that is what we're looking for,” he said, and Arthur knew that he'd been passed over on purpose. “But I know you've got this.”

“Yeah,” Arthur said, and gave him a quick smile. “Of course.”

“Great.” Dom gave his shoulder a squeeze, then let go and slid off the desk. “See you later, Arthur, okay? We can do lunch tomorrow, if you're not busy.”

“Sure,” Arthur said. Dom left, and Arthur exhaled.

So he wasn't going to be a VP. He would be an associate for another couple of years. That was...

It was not okay. He couldn't even pretend it was, the way he pretended everything about his life was okay. Not getting VP meant he was stuck, like this, with this life, for the foreseeable future; and he could see nothing past this. Two years was too long, it was too far away, and there was nothing else to look forward to. Arthur could find another firm, get in with them—but that would mean spending another three or four years as an associate, living exactly like this. That's the thing with investment banking: he was in now, and the only way to make it worthwhile was to stay. Here, Arthur could triple his already-considerable salary over time.

But time was exactly what he didn't have.

He didn't have anything. He wondered briefly who he could share this disappointment with, and remembered there was no one. He had no girlfriend and no likelihood of getting one, as long as he was working this many hours. No hobbies. He had nothing but his work. He'd been proud of that, but now, watching the horizon fall away from him, spanning a full two years more of his life—

It was enough. He had no energy left with which to carry on; he would burn out long before anyone made him a VP. He was burnt out _now_. He wanted out, and he had nowhere to go. The solution settled on him gently, like the snow falling outside; not for the first time, but this time was different. He had always shied away, shamed, in the past. This time he looked at it straight on, grasped it, and held tight.

And he felt relieved.

It's not that Arthur wanted to die. He just wanted to feel better.

He went through his work that day in a haze of numbness, hoping to at least leave his things organized for whoever had to take over. He left his office for a coffee at lunchtime and Nash told him he seemed more chipper than usual. Arthur shrugged and smiled. He stayed in his office for a long time, hoping to at least leave it with a sense of completeness. This place was more his home than his apartment was.

He left when he could put it off no later, long after the sun had set. He walked, and was frozen through by the time he reached the bridge. He stood and shivered, his thumb slipping over the buttons on his phone as he punched in numbers. Felt like his head was full of static when he lifted the phone to his ear and listened for a response, breath puffing in front of his face. This was the last thing he had to do. It already felt like he’d lifted a huge burden off himself; but he still had to do this.

“Come on,” he murmured when all he heard was ringing. “Come on. Pick up.”

A click. “ _You've reached David. I'm not available right now, but if you leave your name and number_ —”

Arthur ended the call, shoved the phone in his pocket and buried his head in both hands. This was the last thing he wanted to do, and the world couldn't even grant him this. He was so tired, and the thought of what he was about to do was the only thing that gave him any sense of peace. But he wanted to talk to his brother first.

He looked at his watch. (He couldn't bear to leave the watch behind. He'd abandoned his coat and his cash, but his father had told him to always judge a man by his watch, and he'd started saving for this one as soon as he got his first job out of business school.) It was almost three o'clock in the afternoon in Brisbane. He knew his brother went to the beach during the day and gave paid surfing lessons to people. Of course he wouldn't have his phone on him. The thought made Arthur want to cry.

“Come on,” he said to the phone, pulling it out and dialing again. A man walked past him and Arthur turned his head aside, pretended to be walking in the opposite direction. If he saw someone he knew out here—if someone looked at him and guessed his intention...

But the man kept going. Arthur stopped walking and relaxed, listening to the purr of his phone in his ear. He rubbed at his eyes one-handed. Resignation stole over him. It was probably better like this.

“ _You've reached David. I'm not available right now, but if you leave your name and number, I'll get back to you when I can. Thanks._ ”

A beep.

“Hey, Dave,” Arthur forced out. He was afraid his voice would break, but it didn't. He took a deep breath all the same, to fortify himself. Tried to smile, so that he wouldn't sound so bad and David wouldn't worry, but it didn't work. “It’s Arthur. I just wanted to give you a call, and ... to see how you’re doing, and ... to apologize for not calling you more often, I guess. And ...”

Fuck, it was so hard to rally his thoughts. He was so exhausted, his vision was starting to blur. He looked back at Manhattan, a bleary streak of lights until he blinked a few times. It wasn't a bad view.

He remembered what he wanted to say.

“And ... I wanted to apologize for not being there. After Dad died. I'm sorry I didn't stay and take care of you ... I shouldn't have left.”

An orphan at sixteen, David had been taken in by his best friend's family. And Arthur had felt relieved. Relieved, because it meant he was free of the burden of taking care of his teenaged brother. Free to go to school and become a financial success without David weighing him down. And become a success he had; and David ... had not.

He's been a bad brother. He hoped his money would make up for it.

“So ... that's it, I guess.” He opened his eyes—hadn't realized he'd closed them—and found himself looking down at the river. It looked black and far away, like a dream. (He hadn’t wanted to make a scene, or a mess.)

“Hope you're okay. I'll talk to you soon,” he added, because he knew David would find it weird, getting a call from him out of the blue, and then he'd probably worry.

He ended the call. Slipped the phone into his pocket. He wished he could have heard his brother's voice, not a recorded message. But he felt better. The last of the crushing weight was gone. He was scared, but for the first time in a long time he didn't feel anxious, or unhappy, or out of control.

He felt ready. He felt _in_ control, for once.

There was no room in his head for hesitation; he was way past that point. He gripped the railing, and pulled himself over to the other side.

 

 

***

Arthur stares at his phone blankly, where Eames' name sits on top of his number.

_How do I talk to you without seeming like I'm interested in knowing you?_

He is interested—that's the worst part. Arthur's whole life has been about wearing a disguise, something happy and normal, someone who doesn't stand out. Eames is the only person to have seen him as he is, with no mask, and he didn't attack Arthur or turn away. How could he? He's a misfit too, in his own way. Arthur had cried on his shoulder, and when he thinks about it, he doesn't feel humiliated like he ought to. Eames hadn't judged him for it—hadn't said anything at all. The idea of there being someone out there with whom Arthur can, at long last, _relax_ is appealing.

He's still a stranger right now, not dangerous. But if Arthur is in regular contact with him, what then? It hadn't taken Arthur long to realize, with a flicker of shame, that he doesn't want to be caught associating with Eames.

Eames has sent him a few texts over the couple of weeks since they had lunch. Short, meaningless observations, sometimes queries as to how Arthur's doing. He knows that Eames doesn't sleep so great either, that he does Sudoku in his spare time. Arthur doesn't reply much. He'd asked last week, maybe hoping to make Eames uncomfortable, how his HIV test turned out, but Eames' reply had been a happy “ _Neg!!!_ ” with a smiley-face emote and a thumbs-up.

Messaging him now would be encouraging him. But sitting here at his desk, Arthur finds he's having a hard time focusing on his work. He keeps thinking about Robert Fischer.

He blows out a sigh and grinds his knuckles into the bridge of his nose. He doesn't even know why this matters. But he picks his phone back up and types out a message with one thumb, staring blearily past his hand.

_If you'd worked for your father, would he have fired you for being gay?_

He hits Send, puts his phone down, and wishes he could take it back.

Two replies are sent within minutes.

_WTF where did that come from  
Do u kno how early it is_

Arthur ignores both messages. Eames doesn't want to answer the question, that's fine. He tries to focus on his computer screen, but all the text is blurry.

His phone rings. He looks up at his door, into the office. Everyone seems to be working quietly, not likely to bother him. He answers.

“Where did that question come from?” Eames asks, sounding genuinely puzzled. His voice is raspy and soft: he's just woken up. Arthur's annoyed, suddenly, and his reply is curt.

“You didn't have to call to tell me you don't want to answer it.”

“I didn't say that.” Eames pauses. “I didn't think you'd answer.”

“Then why did you call?” Arthur snaps.

Another pause. His heart is beating fast; he has a headache. He squeezes his eyes shut and waits for Eames to hang up on him.

“Arthur.” It doesn't sound reproving. Eames just says it—tiredly, but gently, almost. Carefully. “My father wouldn't have fired me because my work and my sexuality don't have anything to do with one another. Unless I was shagging some guy on his office desk, I doubt he would care what I did outside of work hours. What is this about?”

Feels like all the blood vessels behind his eyes are constricting. Arthur fumbles to pull open a drawer, shuffles some papers aside until he finds a bottle of Advil.

“Arthur?”

“My boss,” Arthur says finally. “Had his son thrown out of the building just now. Someone saw him kissing a ... a guy, a custodian.”

Eames makes an interested sound. He's more awake now. “Do you suppose he'd do that to any gay employee, or just his son?”

“I don't know,” Arthur says, breathing hard through his nose. He finally manages to open the bottle one-handed and pills clatter onto his desk. “It doesn't concern me.”

He hears Eames exhale—maybe laughing at him. “Arthur ...”

“It doesn't,” Arthur bites out, “concern me.”

His head gives a vicious throb. He puts two pills in his mouth, swallows them with a drink of espresso. Takes a third pill, after a moment. Then he puts his hand over his closed eyes, finding some relief in the darkness, and sighs.

“What did your coworkers say?”

Arthur had almost forgotten he's on the phone. He keeps his hand over his eyes and tells Eames what Cobb said. He doesn't know how he himself feels about it—he doesn't care, really—but he thinks Cobb's response was normal. Eames is quiet when Arthur finishes.

“I'm going to give you a piece of advice,” he says after a minute, “and I beg you to heed it, Arthur. Don't hang around with anyone who starts sentences with ' _I'm not a bigot, but_ '.”

Arthur's eyes fly open. Light stabs into his skull. “That's my best friend,” he says hotly. “You don't even know him—you don't know anything. You're a fucking waiter,” he says, and the vitriol is just spilling out of him, faster than he can catch it. “What the fuck do you know?”

He's met with silence. He's done it; he's pushed Eames away. His head aches.

“Sorry,” he says, very low. He's not sure Eames is even there anymore.

“No. You're right,” Eames says in a short, clipped way. “I don't work there. I expect you're surrounded by bigots, and you'd love to be just like them but you aren't, are you? You don't think like that.”

“You don't know how I think,” Arthur says, even lower.

“I think you try very hard to be someone you're not at that place, Arthur.”

But he's spent his whole life trying to get here. What if he does think just like them? What if he doesn't want to work with someone like that? He thinks of the way Robert had looked at him on his way out and feels justified. Maybe nobody wants to work with Robert and it has nothing to do with him being gay, maybe he's just a bad person and that's why Fischer threw him out. Maybe he's not a hard worker. Not like Arthur. Maybe, maybe. He's grinding the heel of his palm into his eyes so hard that little coloured stars pop behind his eyelids, distracting from his headache.

“You just want to think you saved a good person's life,” he says finally. “Stop trying to project shit onto me.”

“Why did you text me then?” Eames asks. But his voice is going tinny; Arthur's already moving the phone away from his ear, and he hits the button to hang up on Eames.

Why _did_ he text Eames? Because Eames knows more about this shit than he does, he tells himself. No other reason. Stupid, anyway. He doesn't need to know what Eames thinks.

He works until his head doesn't feel like it's splitting anymore. After an hour or so, he pulls out his phone again and looks through it until he finds the number he's looking for.

“Hey, Ariadne?” he says when she answers. “It's Arthur.”

“Arthur, hi!” she says, and she does, in fact, sound glad to hear his voice. Mal wasn't lying. Arthur's a little heartened.

“Just wanted to say ... I had a really good time on Saturday.”

“Me too.” It sounds like she's smiling.

“And,” he adds, taking a deep breath, “I'm sorry I didn't kiss you goodnight.”

“That—” She stops and laughs, sheepish. “Mal. Damnit.”

“Mal,” he confirms. “But, if you're interested, I'd love a second chance ... to rectify that mistake.”

“Oh!” she says, and for a second Arthur thinks he's got it wrong, that Mal was wrong, and then— “Definitely, yes! When?”

He looks at his schedule, and they work something out for Thursday, and she sounds happy when they hang up. Arthur sighs, sinking back into his chair. Ariadne is pretty. Not glamorous, like Mal, but pretty, and cheerful. Arthur could see himself marrying her. One day, maybe. If she does like him. She's smart, a junior architect at Mal's firm; she could hold her own with anyone Arthur works with, and he likes that about her. He could take her to work functions. They would be good together.

He likes the thought. It sustains him through the morning, until his headache has subsided some more, and he doesn't think about Robert Fischer at all.

 

 

***

It was dark and Arthur's phone was ringing. He groped around—startled when he came to the edge of the bed too fast, confused when he squinted and found that the floor was much closer than expected. He was in someone else's bed. It was not as big as his own bed. It was strangely comfortable.

Someone was calling him. He slid off the bed, found his folded-up pants where he'd left them and pulled out his phone.

“Hello?”

“Arthur! Hey.” It was his brother. Arthur pressed his fingers into the bridge of his nose and tried not to think that David sounded relieved to hear his voice.

“Hey,” he echoed.

“Ah, did I wake you up? I'm sorry.”

His phone said it was 5:18AM. He'd slept later than usual. “It's fine. I have to get up for work anyway.”

“I got your message,” Dave said.

Arthur had a half memory of leaving it. He ground his teeth, then managed to say, “I was drinking last night.”

“You don't have to apologize for anything,” his brother said. “I mean, jeez, Arthur, we were both kids. What were you gonna do, skip college so you could pack my lunches every day? We did fine. Okay? We both turned out fine.”

Did David turn out okay? He has no college degree. Arthur sank back onto the bed. His throat felt tight. “Yeah.”

David laughed. It sounded a little forced. “Anyway, you okay? It's not really like you to get drunk and leave sappy messages on my voice mail.”

“Just been thinking about it I guess.” The bed smelled unfamiliar and not bad. He rolled onto his belly and pressed his face to the pillow. Like male sweat and ... shampoo, maybe. It was good.

His brother was saying something. Arthur realized he was essentially smelling a stranger's pillow and lifted his head in time to catch the tail end.

“... probably under stress, right? I know it's probably against your personal philosophy to take vacations, but you really should. Just go somewhere. Take someone. You're seeing someone, right?”

“No,” said Arthur. The answer was automatic: partly because it was never untrue, but also because he was disengaging from the conversation, suddenly suspicious of this stranger who'd brought him home and given Arthur his bed. Eames. He sat up, reached over to the night table and pulled open the top drawer while David went on.

“Well, then, go somewhere and just hook up. Have a hot beach fling or something. Or come and visit us, you know you're always welcome here, you're family. Em would love to meet you. And Noah. You know, your nephew-slash-godson?”

“When I have time.” There was nothing of note in the top drawer—lube, a handful of condoms, some papers—but in the next drawer down there was a crinkled photo, lying face-down, of two men on top of a snowy slope. He realized one was Eames, wearing a hat and grinning. His friend had wavy light brown hair and a matching grin full of straight white teeth. Reflective sunglasses hid his eyes. The ex-boyfriend. “I'll visit you when I have time.”

“Yeah? When's that?”

“In a couple years.” He put the photo away.

“What about this year, Arthur?” David pressed. “When are you taking a break?”

“Did you call me so you could berate me for my life choices? Because I can think of a few of yours—”

“No. Jesus,” David said. “Not everything is a fight, Arthur.”

But it always was, when they talked. He'd wanted to hear David's voice, but he didn't anymore. He was still here. The sun would come up again, and another work day would start, and he would have to be at the office so that Dom knew nothing was wrong. And his work would start to pile up. He hadn't accomplished enough yesterday. He was very tired, and tired of talking to his brother, suddenly.

“I have to go get ready for work,” he said. He flipped the photo over again. They looked happy. He turned it over and slid the drawer shut. “I'll call you ...”

“Anytime. You don't have to be drunk.” David sounded a little reproachful. Arthur bit back what he wanted to say and ended the conversation with “Bye.”

When he put his phone away the apartment was quiet. Eames, the good Samaritan, was probably asleep. What had possessed Arthur to come back here with him?—to _talk_ to him? Only exhaustion, he decided. He rubbed a hand over his face wearily.

...Had he really told Eames he's slept with men?

He'd have to go home, and leave no trace of ever having been here. Before he got up, though, he checked out the last drawer in the bedside table, the bottom-most, and blinked when he found what looked like a sleek, economical little sex toy. The sister's, probably. It was her guest bedroom after all. Maybe kept it here so her boyfriend wouldn't find it.

He slid the drawer shut and got up. He felt very heavy, like he'd been run over, and only minimally rested. But minimally was better than not at all. He could work for another day on four hours of sleep. It was more than he'd been getting lately. The other shit...

He just wouldn't think about it. It was the only way to keep himself from wishing Eames had just kept walking.

He left the apartment without seeing Eames. Only once he was on the sidewalk, shivering with his hands in his pockets, did he panic and think to check his wallet. Nothing missing—his credit card was still there, his bank card, driver's license.

And a note. _If you need to talk_...

He thought of the things they'd talked about last night, and felt sick.

“No,” he said out loud. He crumpled the note up and dropped it there on the street. Then he walked home.


	4. Chapter 4

Eames cradles his phone between shoulder and ear, hunched up on a couch cushion. “Mal, I don't know.”

“Please, Eames,” she says. “As a favour to me?”

He hedges, mumbling some answer while he fiddles indecisively with Amy's phone.

“He's very attractive.”

“You know that's not the point.” Eames sighs. “I'm still ... I don't know. Not ready for dating.”

He does it before he can keep thinking about it: pulls up a new message, taps Henri's number in, and types into the text box: “ _3 mois negative —E_.”

“Don't think of it as a date!” Mal urges. “He needs a friend, that's all. You need friends too.”

“I have friends,” Eames says, offended.

“Friends you can relate to.”

For a second, strangely, he thinks of Arthur, who had listened to him talk about Henri and not found his feelings stupid. He sighs again, and jumps when the phones buzzes in his hand.

_Dieu merci._

“I don't know,” he says finally.

Mal must sense that she's wearing him down, because she returns to the attack. “One date, and you can just talk to him, so he knows he's not alone. It will be good for you both.”

Amy's phone buzzes again: _Puis je t'appeler?_

 _Pas encore_ , Eames types, with a guilty twist in his stomach. “Not yet” implies a future in which Henri _is_ allowed to call him, and he doesn't know that yet. To Mal, he says, “One date. Only since you think he's leaving town soon, anyway.”

That makes her happy, as he knew it would. “I knew you would do it, my lovely Eames.”

“Right, yeah.” He erases the messages on Amy's phone and puts it aside. It wouldn't be good for her to see those. “Just send me the details.”

“I will. I love you, my Eames.”

He grumbles, making her laugh merrily before she hangs up. He puts his phone down next to Amy's on the couch, and pretends to be heavily invested in a Sudoku puzzle when his sister walks out of the kitchen.

“Is Mal getting you to go on a date?” she asks, grinning.

“No,” Eames says shortly. “It's not a date. And it's rude to eavesdrop on private conversations.”

She looks like she has something to say about that, but just then her phone buzzes. Eames tucks himself more firmly into his puzzle book as she walks over and checks the phone. Her voice is like the crack of a whip.

“Are you texting Henri with my phone?”

“No,” Eames says. “Of course not. Why? What did he say?”

“Forget what he said,” she snaps, typing something into the phone. Eames jumps up, startling Porkchop, who'd been sleeping next to him.

“What are you saying?”

“Forget it.” She shoves the phone in her pocket. “You are _done with him_ , Eames, remember?”

“I only told him the three-month test was negative,” Eames says, his face hot. “He'd want to know.”

“Well, he doesn't deserve to know! If he really cared about you getting HIV or not he wouldn't have fucked around with someone else without a condom, would he?”

“You _know_ him, Amy,” Eames says angrily, because he hates this—her acting like she didn't used to treat Henri like a brother. He hates her laying it out like that, too, making him think about it all over again. “You know he'll have been sick worrying about it, it doesn't hurt just to let him know—”

“Let him worry,” she says calmly. “He's a lying piece of shit and I hope he spends the rest of his life worrying whether he infected you or not.”

She turns around and leaves him standing there, almost shaking with useless anger. He has no defense—should not even be trying to defend Henri in the first place. He hates Henri. He hates his sister for hating Henri. He loves her for sticking up for him, so immediately and determinedly; but then, he loves Henri too, and isn't that pathetic?

He will go on a date with Mal's friend, and maybe this will be his turning point. Maybe this guy is the one, like Henri wasn't; maybe he makes Eames feel better in ways Henri never could have. But that feels like a fantasy, so remote it seems cruel to think about, so he pushes it away.

 

*  
He spends so much time agonizing over how to prepare for his date that he ends up running late for it. It's been so long since he's dated anyone new—the last first date he went on was with Henri, over seven years ago, and they'd been friends before then anyway.

He skids into the restaurant at 7:04, and finds a single man sipping a drink at the bar. “Robert?” he asks breathlessly, and when the man nods, Eames sticks out a hand. “Eames. Sorry I'm late.”

Robert looks him over, getting the measure of him. He seems to decide that he doesn't mind what he sees, and shakes Eames' hand.

“That's okay,” he says. “Mal told me not to expect much.”

They're shown to their seat, a tiny booth near a window, with a little candle flickering on the table. Even in the low light, Eames can't say he minds what he sees either. Robert isn't what he'd usually call his type, but he's good-looking all the same. He's got the bluest eyes Eames has ever seen, just a shade lighter than Henri's, which were striking for the same reason. It causes Eames a little twinge when Robert turns his gaze on him, after the hostess has left them alone.

“So, Eames,” he says, his blue eyes cool and intense. “What do you do?”

It's an awkward question for Eames. “I study psychology,” he says. In the interests of honesty, he forces himself to add, “But right now I wait tables at a restaurant. Not the worst way to make a living.”

“Not the best,” Robert points out.

“Well, no.” That's a bit of a given, especially as he's sitting across from a man wearing a Rolex on his wrist. He forces a smile. “What about you?”

“I'm an investment banker,” Robert says. “I work for my father.”

“Sounds nice.”

“It's not,” Robert says. “He just found out I'm gay and threw me out of his office. I fully expect to be banished to Sydney or Singapore in a week or two. Do you have a father?”

“Passed away a few years ago,” Eames says.

“Lucky you,” Robert replies, without a trace of irony. “The only reason I'm not fired is my father doesn't want a scandal, so I should be grateful for that, I guess.”

“I'm sorry,” Eames says. It's been five minutes and he's starting to wish he hadn't shown up. Robert shrugs stiffly and takes a sip of water.

“Mal said your boyfriend left you,” he says, when he's put his glass back down.

“Other way around, actually,” Eames says, “but that's how it felt. He cheated,” he says, by way of explanation.

“Shit,” says Robert. “Why?”

“I don't know.” That's still the worst part, probably. Eames still doesn't know what about himself is so unfulfilling that his boyfriend had to fuck another man. It's a sliver of glass in his heart, buried deep.

“My boyfriend left me,” Robert offers. “Too much drama, he said.” He laughs, but there's a very slight wobble in his voice. “Fuck him, right? So how do you know Mal?”

Eames gets the feeling that Robert isn't all that interested in any of his answers, but he explains anyway about growing up with Mal and spending school holidays at her parents' summer home in France. Robert nods along and sometimes glances out the window, so it's hard to tell how much he's actually listening. When Eames returns the question, he pauses.

“Her husband works for my father,” he says after a moment.

“Oh, Dom,” Eames says, and his brain makes a lightning-quick connection—the bank where Dom works, an ambiguous text from Arthur, and suddenly he knows who Robert is, and he says, without thinking: “Do you know Arthur?”

“Arthur?” Robert's eyes flicker with interest. He sits up. “You're friends with _Arthur?_ ”

“Not really,” Eames back-pedals. Stupid; he shouldn't have said anything. “I just—know him, a bit.”

Robert relaxes and laughs, though it comes out bitter-sounding. “Right. Arthur has no friends. I guess you know that. You know what the other associates call him? Most likely to shoot up the building if he ever gets fired.”

It seems, to Eames, an odd thing to make a joke about; but then, he's still adjusting to American culture, so he just says “Mm.”

Robert leans back in his chair, still smiling a little. “So Arthur's gay? I knew it.”

“No,” Eames says firmly. Whatever he thinks about Arthur, it's not his place to out anyone. “Arthur is straight, so far as I know. I just know that he works with Dom, so I thought you might know him, too.”

Robert's smile is gone. “Everyone there knows Arthur. He's the best. That and the giant stick up his ass is probably why no one likes him.”

Eames cracks a thin smile. “I know what you mean.”

“My father doesn't like him,” Robert adds.

“Oh? Why's that?”

Robert shrugs. “Who knows. Because he's a robot ... maybe 'cause he's Jewish.”

“Really?” Eames says archly, thinking that this is perhaps a poor attempt at a joke. But Robert shrugs and mumbles, “Who knows, with my dad.”

Eames changes the subject after that. Robert doesn't seem to mind talking about himself, fortunately. Eames isn't a psychology student anymore, whatever he says, but he's always made it a habit to study other people, and he forms an image of Robert in his mind even while they talk. Only child, more than a little emotionally neglected. His mother is gone, passed away when he was growing up. He dates women but thinks very little of them. His biggest attraction (here is where Eames begins to fill in some blanks) is to blue-collar men, none of whom, Eames suspects, get with Robert based on his charming personality. Robert talks big but he's lonely, and willing to spend money on a man in a misguided attempt to make him stay; but that never works out for him in the long term—which, Robert says bitterly, is their loss.

Eames listens and nods and responds with non-committal monosyllables. He orders a margherita pizza for one; Robert orders gluten-free pasta. Their waitress brings them drinks (a beer for Eames, wine for Robert) and garlic bread, with butter in a little platter.

“At least I'm 'out', now,” Robert says sardonically while Eames is buttering a piece of garlic bread. “You don't know how hard it is to hook up discreetly in this town.”

“Really? Place like New York, I wouldn't have thought.”

Robert snorts. “Without ending up in the back of someone's van, I mean. Excuse me,” he says, first putting out a hand and then looking up at their waitress as she walks past their table. She stops, and he says, with a cool smile, “I really don't think it would kill you to bring us butter my date doesn't have to chisel off the plate with a knife. Room temperature is really not that much to ask, is it?”

“Of course. I'll bring that right away.” She bustles off quickly. Robert turns back to Eames with a sour expression.

“It's like they've never eaten in a restaurant themselves, isn't it? Like little aliens.”

Eames has stopped trying to spread the cold butter on his garlic bread; he takes a bite and says, non-committal, “Mm.”

“Your restaurant's different, I'm sure,” Robert concedes, perhaps only then remembering Eames' occupation. “It's funny that you're a waiter, actually, I wouldn't have guessed. You seem pretty smart.”

There are many things Eames wants to say in response to this, but he limits himself to “Thank you.”

“Anyway, like I said, your options are limited if you're not willing to just go out to a gay club and hook up. Sometimes I used to anyway—I saw a classmate of mine at a club once, covered in glitter and grinding on some guy's dick on the dance floor—we even made eye contact; you think I was gonna say anything about seeing him there? But then I got a little more paranoid and started hooking up online.”

“Why not hook up with the classmate?” Eames asks, and Robert sneers.

“He was a twink, come on. I like _men_.”

“What about your last boyfriend?” Eames says, trying to recall what Arthur had said. A janitor, wasn't it? “How did you meet him?”

Robert softens, just for a moment. “He worked for the building my dad's office is in. Maintenance.” He hardens himself again. “He's a thug who doesn't know a good thing when he's got it.”

The waitress brings them some new butter. “Thank you,” Robert says pointedly.

“Cheers,” Eames says, more graciously. Since it's there, he butters another piece of bread. “So, online works for you then?”

“It's not the best. Nobody likes to share an honest picture of themselves. But it's safer than getting picked up by creeps in night clubs.”

Unbidden, Eames thinks for the second time of Arthur, who pretends so fiercely that he didn't admit to Eames that he sleeps with men. He thinks of Arthur getting so frustrated and wound-up at work that he—what? Goes online, like Robert? Somehow Eames doubts it.

“What kind of creeps?” he asks.

“Oh, all kinds,” says Robert carelessly. “Entitled assholes, regular assholes. Sometimes, married assholes.”

“Christ,” Eames says with distaste, because there's something particularly vile about that, to him. Maybe just because he and Henri were practically married. But before he can think too hard about that, he thinks, again, of Arthur—being made an unwilling participant in cheating, because he needs some release and doesn't know how to find the right partner. Eames is sure he doesn't. He thinks, not for the first time, of that unusually crystal-clear moment in his memory, when Arthur had let Eames hold him and wept. That is not a man who has regular pleasant encounters with other people.

And it burns him, because he hadn't thought about this before. He'd decided, after their last conversation, to let Arthur go, if what Arthur wants is to be free of him; but now he thinks the dissolution of their unusual relationship will have to be postponed one more time.

When their food arrives, and Robert starts examining his pasta critically, Eames says, “Allergy to gluten, or diet?” He feels fairly sure he knows the answer, but Robert shakes his head.

“Non-celiac gluten sensitivity. I get stomachaches, mostly. It's just more comfortable to eat gluten-free. You'd be surprised how many places serve gluten even when you ask for gluten-free, though.” He shoots their retreating waitress a disdainful look. “Hopefully she managed to get it right.”

 _Maybe if you didn't treat your wait staff like insects they'd all get it right_ , Eames thinks impulsively—because he has no respect for servers who fuck with people's orders on purpose, but it's never a good idea to piss off the person who handles your food. For a second, Robert looks up and he's afraid Robert knows what he's thinking—but the moment passes, and Robert looks back down at his dish and starts eating.

Their conversation limps through the rest of the date. Robert pays for the meal. Eames lingers, after, long enough to see that Robert's left a two-dollar tip, and to add a ten-dollar bill. He catches up with Robert just outside the restaurant, where Robert stops and shoves his hands in his coat pockets.

“Sorry,” he says. He looks young, suddenly, and close to tears. “I told Mal I wasn't ready for this.”

Eames softens. “It's alright. I wasn't either, really.”

Robert takes a deep breath. “We can go back to my place and fuck, if you want. I don't mind.”

Eames actually considers it. But there's nothing, no sexual attraction to touch on that would make him say yes. He feels very empty, and very alone; unsure, in that moment, if he will ever find a man he wants to have sex with again.

“That's okay,” he says.

He gives Robert a hug, because it seems appropriate, and Robert looks him in the eye and says, “You're a good guy. Your ex is a dick for cheating on you.”

This is oddly heartening. “Thanks,” Eames says, sincerely. “Good luck with your job.”

Robert snorts softly. “Good luck with yours.”

They part ways, and the empty feeling follows Eames all the way home, where he ignores Amy's questions and sits on the balcony with a bottle of booze for a long time.

 

*  
On Friday night, Arthur declines an invitation from Oscar to hit up a club with some of the other guys—he wants to be alone. Once he's nearly home he changes his mind, though, and finds himself adjusting his route almost without thinking. His feet take him to a familiar restaurant. Not, he decides, to see if Eames is working tonight; after all, he's not getting a table. He slides onto a stool at the end of the bar, which seems unusually crowded, and orders a beer.

Just as the bartender comes back over with his drink, Eames slides in from the corner of Arthur's eye and says something in her ear. She smiles, and they trade places seamlessly, her slipping out and leaving him to watch the bar. He checks on the other patrons before settling himself in front of Arthur, arms folded on the bar.

“Hello hello. This is a surprise.”

“Don't you need to attend some kind of school to tend a bar?” Arthur asks.

“No, but what makes you think I haven't?”

Arthur snorts, and turns his attention back to his beer. Eames picks up a drying glass and starts to wipe it with a clean cloth.

“What brings you here, Arthur?”

“The promise of alcohol,” Arthur says, and gestures. “What about them? Seems kind of crowded tonight.”

Eames, too, glances over at the other patrons. “I'm given to understand there's a rather important hockey game on tonight,” he answers.

Arthur grimaces. It was his father who taught him about sports, and the value of being able to talk sports with other men. Part of business is being able to talk with anyone about anything, and knowing sports is a big component when dealing with men, who always assume that the topic is common ground. For that reason, Arthur follows football and baseball—he doesn't have time to watch games; he just checks the Internet for highlights once they're over—but hockey he had willingly sacrificed. The other two are more popular, anyway. “I don't watch a lot of hockey,” he admits.

“Me neither,” Eames says, and Arthur feels the tiniest bit of kinship with him, in this crowd of men all staring at the TV screen and talking amongst themselves. Then he finishes, “Unless, of course, the Habs are in the playoffs, as they often are.”

Eames is gay and he knows more about hockey than Arthur. A ridiculous thing to be disappointed about, of course—lots of people like hockey—and yet it depresses him all the same.

He turns back to his drink. Eames must sense him closing off, because after refilling someone else's drink, he returns and says, “I had a hot date this week.”

“No kidding,” Arthur says dryly. He means with a man, no doubt, and expects, somehow, for Arthur to be interested. “Me too.”

“Ahh. Was it fruitful?”

“If you're asking whether I fucked her,” Arthur gives the slightest pause, for emphasis, “the answer is no. It was only a second date.”

Eames' lips quirk in a smile. “Still went better than my date, I'm sure. I suspect you know him. Smarmy little piece of work by the name of Robert?”

Arthur does not do a spit-take, but it's a near thing. He swallows, coughs, and rasps, “You went out with _Robert Fischer?_ ”

Because that is dangerous; much, much too dangerous, far too close for comfort—Eames knows too many damning things about him, and this has been a mistake from the start—

“Relax,” Eames says, cutting off his internal panic. “I didn't talk about you. I pieced it together after he described his dismissal from your office. He's headed to Sydney or Singapore, apparently, sooner than later.”

And that does make Arthur relax, marginally. “Sydney, probably,” he says. His heart is still pounding, but for whatever reason, he believes Eames, and curiosity starts to overtake his anxiety. “You went on a date with him? What was it like?”

“Hellish,” Eames says. Arthur believes that, too. He grins into his glass.

Eames is pulled away soon to pour drinks for other customers, leaving Arthur by himself, as he'd wanted. He nurses his drink broodingly. Last time he'd been here, the bar had been quiet, dimly-lit and peaceful. It's what made him think of it when he wanted a quiet place to drink a beer. He's much too tired to have gone clubbing; there's almost no energy in him. But the atmosphere here is getting rowdier with every near-goal, which seems to be a frequent occurrence (actual goals, far fewer. When there is one, the hockey fans set up a roar that makes the diners look over at them).

He hunches into himself and starts to drain his beer faster, head pulsing dully.

“Hey.” Eames is leaning over the bar, snapping his fingers to get Arthur's attention. He glances over his shoulder and then says, “My shift's done in five minutes, d'you want to go back to mine for a drink?”

Arthur tightens his shoulders. “Why?”

Eames shrugs, and tilts his head toward the TV. “Quieter than this place.”

“Fine.”

He finishes his drink before then, and has to sit and wait, only half-decided. The female bartender is back: she takes his glass and he leaves her five dollars. Eames is suddenly at his elbow, dressed in his street clothes.

“Shall we?” he says.

It would be rude to refuse him. Arthur goes with him, because the night is cold and he suspects Eames' place is closer than his own, and he wants that drink. “Where's your sister?”

“At her boyfriend's this weekend,” Eames says. Arthur nods, and they're both quiet for a few minutes, the silence stretching out while they walk; but it doesn't feel awkward. Forcing conversation would be awkward, Arthur thinks. He's more comfortable with the silence, and for the moment, he feels like Eames is, too.

Eames is the one who breaks it, though, abruptly. “D'you always tip well?”

“I don't know,” Arthur says, thrown. “I guess, yeah, usually. Why?”

“Robert doesn't,” Eames says. “He did better than your friend Nash, though, who left me no tip.”

This is exactly what Arthur had been thinking about. Now there's a conversation, and it's weird. He doesn't want to acknowledge that Eames is a server, nor that he'd served Arthur and his colleagues. It had been uncomfortable enough at the time.

Eames doesn't seem uncomfortable, though; he just waits, so Arthur says, “Nash thinks if people worked harder they'd make more money. He works hard for his, so he doesn't give it away.”

“Ah, the old 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' approach. A true capitalist.” Eames sounds more resigned and amused than anything. “And you?”

“What about me?”

“You left me forty dollars. I'd thought it was your way of saying thank you; but you left your card and offered me money. It was a tip.”

In truth, Arthur had left a generous tip mainly because he'd known his coworkers, particularly Nash, wouldn't. In fact, he realizes now, he usually does. He doesn't do it consciously. It's what his father told him to do—good tips for good service—and he listened. Arthur lives most of his life by the advice of his father.

He doesn't say that, though. “It's just money.”

“Indeed,” Eames says, and they keep going in silence.

 

*  
Arthur looks bone-tired when they reach the apartment. He'd looked bone-tired at the restaurant, which was partly why Eames had wanted to get him out of there. Being around Arthur always seems to reawaken the empathy Eames has lost for everyone else, he suspects because Arthur is the only person he knows who's more unhappy than he is.

He leads the way into the apartment, and is relieved to note that Amy hadn't changed her mind and stayed. That, he suspects, would spook Arthur for sure. He turns on the light, sheds his coat and shoes, and hears Arthur, behind him, doing the same; then a muffled thump as Arthur—taking his shoes off—startles and overbalances, bumping the wall.

“What's that?” he says warily.

“What's what?” Eames looks around and realizes Porkchop has wandered out of the kitchen and is regarding them with his usual seriousness. “You mean the dog?”

“That wasn't here last time,” Arthur says.

“That's just Porkchop.” Eames stoops and picks the dog up, eliciting a little affectionate wiggle. “He was staying with Amy's friend last time. She leaves him with me if she's only gone a night or two.”

“Porkchop,” Arthur echoes suspiciously. Then: “Does it bite?”

“No, not at all. Here, say hi—” Eames hefts him securely and turns to Arthur. “He's just curious. I've got him.”

To his credit, Arthur does reach out, though he doesn't look particularly happy about it. He lets his fingers brush the top of Porkchop's head a few times, wary, before actually committing to a caress. Porkchop wiggles.

“He wags his whole body,” Eames says, setting him down once Arthur's taken his hand away, “since he hasn't got a tail.”

Arthur had looked like he was regretting coming here, but that, at least, makes him crack a smile. Porkchop shuffles away, and Arthur follows Eames into the living room. Eames sees him settled on the couch, and leaves him there.

“Working tomorrow?” he inquires idly from the kitchen, filling the kettle and switching it on.

“Yeah,” Arthur answers. “I'm working on a thing, so ... yeah.”

“That's a shame.” He busies himself getting a couple of mugs ready, a tea bag. “You got any allergies?”

“Strawberries.”

“Not pollen, ragweed, anything like that?”

“No.”

He doesn't ask why Eames is asking, which is good, because Eames is fairly sure Arthur would refuse chamomile tea if offered it. It helps Eames sleep sometimes, though, and there's a chance it may help Arthur (especially if he doesn't break out in hives upon ingesting it. It never hurts to make sure).

Once the tea is brewed, Eames steps back into the living room with both mugs and finds Arthur where he'd left him on the couch, with Porkchop twisted up like a pretzel next to his leg—apparently quite comfortable, because he's fast asleep. Arthur is looking at him with a mixture of mild consternation and curiosity, and very carefully petting down his back. He removes his hand when he sees Eames.

“Strawberries, really?” Eames says.

“Really.” Arthur gestures to the dog. “He just, uh, jumped up here.”

“That's alright,” Eames says. Porkchop's not technically allowed on the furniture, but he's been heaving himself up onto the couch to sit with Eames since Eames got here, and Eames never really discourages him. He hands one of the mugs to Arthur, who takes it, but frowns.

“I thought you were offering me a beer.”

“I said 'a drink',” Eames says. “Tea is a drink. It's not poison,” he adds, watching Arthur sniff it suspiciously. “It's chamomile. Help you sleep.”

At that Arthur shoots him a narrow look, but he takes a tiny sip, then sets it down to cool. Eames drops into the adjacent armchair, facing him.

“I wanted to talk to you, Arthur,” he says. “I thought it would be easier here than at work.”

“I'd have preferred beer,” Arthur says flatly.

“I know, but for the sake of my conscience, let me get this out. Just for a minute, and then after I'll go back to believing whatever you'd like me to believe about you, alright?”

Arthur gets abruptly to his feet, his face unreadable. “No. I'm gonna go.”

“Not without this.” Eames shows him his wallet, then tucks it into his back pocket. Arthur's expression is no longer unreadable: he looks livid.

“You took my fucking wallet?”

“Yes. Just sit and let me say my piece, would you? It's important. Then I'll give you back your wallet.”

Arthur sits, slowly. Eames reflects that this might backfire, that Arthur is so angry about being duped that he won't take in a word, and won't want anything to do with Eames after. But he's got to try. This has been on his mind since he'd talked with Robert. He didn't expect an opportunity to speak to Arthur so soon.

“You hook up with men. I know you do. You told me so,” he says, going for the blunt approach. Arthur flushes angrily, but holds his tongue. “But I don't know what you do, or if you're safe, and I suspect you won't want to tell me.”

Arthur digs his fingers into the couch armrest, glaring.

“Thing is, it's very easy to be unsafe, especially in a big city like this. And I know that self-preservation does not rank very highly on your list of priorities. But no matter how you feel about yourself, Arthur, surely we can both agree that you don't want to be the cold open on an episode of _SVU_.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Arthur says, thin-lipped.

“Some men are dangerous, that's what I'm saying,” Eames lays it out bluntly again. “And when you hook up the way—someone like you does, it's incredibly easy to get hurt. I'm not trying to patronize you,” he adds, when Arthur sneers slightly, “I'm fully aware that you're a grown-up—I just think, perhaps, you may not quite know ... what you're getting into.”

“ _You_ don't know what you're talking about,” Arthur amends his previous statement. “And I'm done with this conversation. Give me my wallet.”

But he doesn't get up, and neither does Eames.

“Say you meet some guy who decides not to wear a condom—”

“I don't—”

“You can be fooled,” Eames cuts him off sharply. The next words taste like ash on his tongue: “My ex was. And he got HIV. It only takes one time, with one guy who takes off the condom halfway through, or talks you out of using it—”

“That's disgusting,” Arthur says. There's even more colour in his face, and his eyes are bright, embarrassed. “You can't seriously think—”

“Listen to me, Arthur,” Eames snaps. “I don't care what you do or don't do, just fucking listen until I'm done. My friends and I had this system in university, right, where if one of us went home with someone, we'd text the person's name and address to someone else, so they'd know where we were. And I know you don't have anyone else you can do that with, so I'm asking you just to text me when you hook up with some stranger—no questions asked. And if something happens—”

“What's going to happen, Eames?” Arthur demands. “You think I'm going to get raped and killed? You really think I need protecting from your gay friends?”

“Yeah, I do,” Eames says shortly. “I think a lot of men would chew you up and spit you out in a second, for your information, and I know enough about you to guess that you don't go looking for safe and cozy encounters. I'm not saying someone's going to murder you—it could be anything, unsafe sex, some guy who's into domination and doesn't feel the need to discuss it beforehand—” he doesn't like the way Arthur's eyes narrow at that “—or it could be _your_ friends, did you ever think of that? Self-loathing insecure pricks who're so repulsed by themselves that they pretend to pick up gay guys just to beat the hell out of them—”

“I would never—”

“No?” Eames says, well and truly fired up and on a roll now. “You're telling me if some poor kid walked up to you in front of your important business friends and asked to buy you a drink, you wouldn't want to hit him?”

“No, because I'm not a psychopath,” Arthur says hotly. “Are you all this paranoid? That doesn't happen, Eames!”

“Yes, it does,” Eames snarls. “I know it does.”

He waits for Arthur to argue some more, but Arthur just looks at him. Then he looks down at his tea, takes another sip. Rests a hand on Porkchop's back.

“To you?” he asks finally, almost casually.

“No,” Eames says. “My boyfriend.” He clears his throat. “My ex.”

Arthur nods, eyes narrowed. “How'd it happen?”

“He went for a drink one night near his school's campus. Just wanted a quiet drink, but this guy started to chat him up. This was the year before I met him,” Eames adds. “Eventually the guy convinced him to leave, go someplace quieter down the street for a coffee.”

That was how Henri had told it, and Eames had never had any reason to doubt; but now, on this side of their break-up, he wonders if he ever really knew Henri at all. If Henri was, in fact, the type of person who'd go home with a man he'd just met. He doesn't think so, but how can he know, really?

“So they left the bar,” he continues, feeling uneasy, “and they passed a park, where two of this guy's mates were waiting, and they jumped him, the three of them. Kicked him in the head, left a nice scar—” He traces it, right through his left eyebrow. “Fucked him up pretty good. And they left him for dead, bleeding in a snow bank. Not sure how many people walked past before someone called for an ambulance.” He has to clear his throat again, because it still gets him, thinking about this happening—to Henri, of all people; who, for all his faults, is still the gentlest person Eames knows. “He was in the hospital for awhile. Doctors told his parents he might never wake up, or might wake up and not be himself anymore.”

“But he was okay,” Arthur says.

“Yeah, approximately. Had some anxiety for awhile. He'd been applying to medical schools, but he scrapped that and just became a nurse. It was easier for him.” As long as Eames has known Henri, he's always done the easy thing. It's one of the few things they consistently argued about. “He's okay now, yeah. But they nearly killed him, Arthur. It happens all the time. You don't hear about it in the news or anything, but it does.”

Arthur is frowning. And he's drinking his tea, slowly. Porkchop snuffles gently at his side, and Arthur touches his back again, as if without thinking.

“For the record,” he says, “I have been hit on by a man in front of my coworkers, and I rejected him like a normal person. I don't hate gay people, Eames. I just want to be left alone. And I haven't ... I haven't—done that.” He swallows, his ears pink. “Since.”

He can't meet Eames' eyes. Eames can fill in the blanks well enough on his own. And he recognizes the effort it took for Arthur to spit that out—to finally confirm, yes, that he has slept with men, that he admitted it to Eames and wasn't lying. Maybe he's even telling the truth now, that he hasn't done it since they met that night, but Eames is not so sure.

He takes the wallet out of his back pocket and tosses it. Arthur snatches it out of the air and tucks it away.

“We're done,” Eames says. “Just wanted to put that out there.”

“Thanks for the tea,” Arthur says, cold again, protecting himself, “but I don't need your worry.”

He gets up, and Porkchop dozes on.

He's pulling his coat on in the foyer while Eames gathers up the cups—Arthur has actually drained his—and heads to the kitchen. A glance outside tells him what he's been hearing outside for the past few minutes: rain, sleeting against the windows and balcony. “Arthur?” he calls. “It's raining.”

Arthur appears at his shoulder a moment later to look out the window. He doesn't say anything, but a glance reveals the hunted look on his face. He's very tired, and no doubt thinking of the dozen-odd blocks between here and home.

“Stay the night.” Eames shrugs, walks into the kitchen. “You managed to sleep last time. Maybe lightning'll strike twice.”

“I don't know ...”

He wants to escape, no doubt. Eames doesn't blame him.

“Up to you,” he says, rinsing both cups out in the sink. He feels a bit drained himself. Thinking too much about Henri. “My bed's there if you want it. I can toss a clean sheet on.”

Arthur is quiet, and Eames assumes he's decided to go and is putting his shoes on. He starts loading the dishwasher and turns it on. When he leaves the kitchen, Arthur is sitting on the couch again, petting Porkchop with one hand. He glances uncertainly at Eames.

“You don't mind?”

“Nah,” Eames says, flopping onto the couch heavily enough that Porkchop wakes up and looks over at him. “I'll take Amy's bed.”

“It's just that I don't have an umbrella with me. And I know if I leave now I won't sleep, so—”

“I don't mind, Arthur,” Eames interrupts. Arthur is fidgeting, uncomfortable—probably afraid Eames will force him to talk about fucking men again—so Eames picks up the TV remote and channel-surfs until he finds an old sitcom rerun. He doesn't feel much like talking anymore. He's annoyed with himself. That's the second time he's opened up to Arthur about Henri—and Eames doesn't open up to anyone, especially about Henri. Yusuf is different, and Amy is just an expert at battering down his defenses; but even Mal, his oldest friend, doesn't know the whole truth.

But Arthur doesn't tell anyone anything, after all. And the company, Eames must admit, is welcome. He'd figured it would be him and the dog all weekend, alone—and that still isn't a state Eames is used to. Even Arthur, defensive and snide as he often is, is better than nothing. He'd be drinking all night again, otherwise. They watch TV in companionable silence, and Eames reaches over, rubs Porkchop's silky ear idly between his fingers, and makes him grunt happily. Before the show ends, he slips away, makes sure his room is roughly presentable, and leaves some clean shorts and a t-shirt on the bed. Then, with Arthur still watching TV on the couch, he leashes Porkchop up, takes him downstairs and shivers while the dog pees against one of the supports holding up the awning outside the building.

When they return, chilly but dry, Arthur is still on the couch, half-asleep. He rouses when Eames sits back down, and casts him a sidelong glance.

“Are you gonna see Robert again?” he asks, his face unreadable.

“No,” Eames says. The cold, empty feeling that had attached itself to him after his date is back. There's no one out there for him. “Kind of done with men for awhile.”

Arthur nods, and Eames thinks—he probably feels like this all the time, empty and alone. In a rough sort of way, Eames decides, they understand each other.

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found on [Tumblr](http://whiskyrunner.tumblr.com/) if you're interested in fic updates and pictures of my adorable rats.


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